Mobius

by Garon Whited

  Whatever it was, the steel was pretty good. The edge had some wavy parts, presumably where nicks were sharpened out of it. The enchantment was a basic strengthening design, protecting it from the worst impacts with heavier weapons. I could work with it.

  A simple spell to homogenize the metal would be a good start, eliminating manufacturing imperfections. A repair enchantment to keep it sharp and straight would follow, and I could tie it in to the strengthening enchantment, expanding it to help it resist chipping, cracking, or breaking, as well as to fix any minor damage.

  I sat down with it at the worktable and started with the basics. Once it was in perfect form, I’d start with the repair enchantment. It’s important to have it exactly as you want it before you hammer in the spell to maintain it.

  Leisel put breakfast down on the other end of the workbench so as not to disturb me. She couldn’t see what I was doing, aside from staring intently at the blade, scratching on the table, and moving my hands around it. I liked the fact she assumed she shouldn’t interrupt. With the repair spell reshaping the metal, I turned my attention to the food and explained what was going on.

  “You’re—wait,” she began. “You’re actually adding more magic to my sword?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you know how expensive that is?”

  “Nope.”

  “I’m going to owe you service for years.”

  “Or you can help me out with a demon, making sure the one thing I want most in the world goes well, and accept a magical blade as a reward for it.”

  “I don’t… it’s not… is it worth a magical blade?”

  “If my favorite son was hanging over the edge of a cliff and you reached down to haul him up, would it be a simple task? Yes. Would it be worth a great reward?”

  “Hmm.”

  “It’s not about what it cost you to do the deed. It’s about what it’s worth to me to have you do it.”

  “I’m not sure I like the way you think,” she muttered. “I should be rewarded for work.”

  “I agree. But I should be allowed to reward you for things I appreciate, shouldn’t I?”

  “I’m still not sure.”

  “Think it over.”

  I wolfed down my breakfast. I probably sharked, lioned, and tribbled down my breakfast, too, carefully keeping my tongue withdrawn. It’s almost a reflex, but I do pay attention to it. With my teeth, biting my tongue is a serious issue. Leisel was silent, presumably thinking it over. She might be choosing not to argue with the lunatic. It’s usually a good idea.

  With the food gone, I checked her sword. It was in much better shape. No nicks, no wavy portions to the edge, a hair-splitting sharpness all along the length—I liked it. The metal was still diffusing a bit, though, and it could stand to have some trace metals in its alloy. I sprinkled a pinch of ashes over it to bring the carbon up slightly and considered where I might find some metals in town.

  “Thank you for breakfast,” I told her.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Now I have to run into town. I want a couple of bits of metal before I do the actual enchantment. Come to think of it, I probably want to talk to Hazir, too. Anything you want while I’m there?”

  “If it’s not too much to ask, some soap and a towel. Maybe another blanket.”

  “It didn’t occur to me we would need soap and towels. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m telling you now.”

  “Okay. That’s it?”

  “Some fresh fruit?”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Can I use my sword?”

  “Oh. Yes, of course. It’s perfectly functional. I’ll have to spend some hours on it when I get back, but I don’t have anything else to do.”

  “Hours,” she repeated.

  “I should be done before nightfall.”

  She shook her head and motioned me to go. I wondered what I said.

  There were plenty of blankets of various sorts, so I bought a warm, thick one. The local climate is hot, but underground, in a mine shaft? It’s colder than I realized and Leisel’s thin cloak was no help.

  Bits of various metals? Not a great deal more difficult, although their selection was somewhat limited. They don’t carry vanadium or tungsten, for example. I resolved to fetch a few bits from elsewhere. Using a small grab gate, it shouldn’t be too expensive.

  The real bonanza was the soap. Sarashda makes a lot of soap. I doubt it’s a primary industry for the city, but it seems to me there are a lot of soaps. There are shops selling nothing but soap! Fortunately, I didn’t have to decide what kind of soap all by myself. Unfortunately, some people don’t know how to stop selling.

  “I’d like a soap for a lady.”

  “What kind of lady?”

  “One who wants to get clean.”

  “Yes, but what kind of lady?”

  “Assume she’s a warrior.”

  “Ah! Then you’ll want one of these kinds—”

  “I’ll take one of each.”

  “Sir?”

  “Stop talking and put them in a bag.”

  “But the qualities of each soap, the fragrances, the oils used in the manufacture—”

  “Do you want to sell me soap? Or do you want to keep talking? You can’t do both. Now put them in a bag, take the money, and consider it a win.”

  I’d almost rather be cheated.

  Hazir, on the other hand, was busy doing his job. He had on his tabard and was walking purposefully along, followed by his arms-bearers. I tracked him down the easy way. I used a locator spell. I wasn’t in the mood to ask everyone in the Hall of Ruling and chase him down. He was delighted to see me.

  “Al! I’m delighted to see you.”

  See? Told you.

  “The pleasure is mine,” I returned. “Got a moment?”

  “Yes, if you will walk with me. I’m on an errand.”

  I slid down one side of Bronze and walked with him. Bronze followed silently.

  “I need some advice,” I admitted.

  “Always ring the silver when you are given change.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “When you are given change in silver, bounce each coin and listen. Silver rings true. False coins do not.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “It is advice.”

  I tried to gauge his expression. He wore a perfect deadpan look. So perfect, it gave him away.

  “Good one,” I admitted. “Thank you for the advice. Now, if I could ask for your advice on a subject I’m about to bring up?”

  “Oh, specific advice. Of course.”

  I like Hazir. I’m not sure why.

  “How hard would it be to go to the edge of the kingdom and carve out a slice of barbarian lands? Specifically, is anyone going to complain too much if I go build a village in the… uh…

  Leisel called it the Kasnakani Range, Firebrand prompted. It’s the far branch of mountains forming a triangle with the southern coast.

  “The Kasnakani Range, for example? I like mountains, and I have something of a nose for mining.”

  “I take it, then, you plan to restore the fortunes of House—of House Lucard in such a manner?”

  “I can’t say the fortunes in question were ever too great. I would settle for a steady income and a modest living.”

  “Still, to rise above one’s station and become more than a warrior… you will either have to, ah, discover your true heritage,” he said mockingly, “or make an appeal to the gods.”

  “The gods? You mean the priests.”

  “Who else would speak for the gods?” he asked, sourly. I liked him even more.

  “And the gods like money, do they?”

  “Priests do. It was not always this way,” he added, darkly.

  “The priests weren’t always the arbiters of changes in caste?”

  “The castes were not always so strict,” he corrected, and glanced around. “But perhaps we should not speak of this in the street.”


  “I see how this is going to go. I carve out a valley and call it mine, then bring them a lot of gold. Will that do it?”

  “The course you outline has been attempted before, but it is hardly an easy road.”

  “I understand. Thing is, I’ve got time and effort invested here, along with a friendly acquaintance or two. I could start over, but I’d face new problems, waste time, waste effort, and be annoyed. It’s a risk, but…”

  “I do not fully follow your thought,” Hazir admitted, “but I gather the gist of it. To hark back to your question, you wish to find someplace in the Range rather than a place unclaimed inside the Empire?”

  “By preference. I’m thinking I’ll look around for likely places to mine something at least moderately valuable and establish a village there. Mountains are more likely to have something.”

  “Hmm,” he mused. “I have some thoughts on the matter, but I should want to consult with a cartographer.”

  “Cartographer?”

  “A maker of maps.”

  “I know what it is. I didn’t expect one to be useful.”

  “Why not?”

  “Provincialism,” I realized. “The mapmakers’ art is not as developed in all areas. Many of the maps I’ve seen are too crude to be useful.”

  “You will be pleasantly surprised in Sarashda,” he assured me. “When my errand is done, I will take you to a cartographer.”

  “I look forward to it. What’s your errand, if I may ask?”

  “Lowgar Hinlon is due at the Hall of Ruling. Overdue, in fact.”

  “And you go to fetch him back?”

  “So have I been bid.”

  “I’ll go with you, if that’s all right.”

  “Of course.”

  Lowgar was not a problem. He was a spice merchant and seemed surprised to see us. Turns out it was a simple error. He thought his appointment was for tomorrow, not today. He apologized profusely, grabbed a wide-brimmed hat, and shouted to his assistant to mind the store. The whole way back, he kept apologizing. Hazir was nice about it.

  With Lowgar safely delivered to the Hall of Ruling, Hazir delivered me to a cartographer.

  They do a much better job here than in Rethven.

  I looked around the shop, examining maps of cities and counties. They were framed and under glass. Each was a hand-drawn work of art, but, perhaps more important from a map point of view, sharp eyes could pick out faint marks, like pencil lines, in a grid pattern. These maps might be useful as more than directions. They might be to scale, even though there was no scale listed. Other notes were included, of course, such as the names of towns, but also numbers along roads—miles? Leagues? Whatever units of measurement they used. Bridges, fords, ferries, all the special considerations for traffic were included.

  “May I help you?”

  The shopkeeper—presumably the cartographer—was picture-perfect. He was an elderly gentleman, hunched in the shoulders, bald on top, with wire-rimmed magnifying lenses resting on his forehead.

  “I’d like to see a map of the civilized region of the world.”

  “See a map of the Empire?” he asked. “No doubt you would.”

  “Do you not have one?”

  “Oh, I have one. What am I bid for it, eh? Is it for sale? Yes, certainly. Is it for the perusal of any who wander in to consult it? It’s a map, boy, and not yours.”

  “I do beg your pardon,” I answered, quickly, since Hazir’s face told me he was about to take offense. “I didn’t mean I wanted to paw over your map. I misspoke terribly. What I would like to know is your fee for consulting your map, as well as the price to buy it. But, naturally, I would like to see it before I buy it.”

  “A fee to consult it?” he asked, surprised. Clearly, the idea hadn’t occurred to him before.

  “Yes. How about I pay you a silver to look at your map of the Empire? Then, if I decide to buy it, I’ll pay the rest. How much are you asking for it?”

  “In silver, it’s forty daros.”

  I pushed a silver one-daro coin toward him.

  “May I examine it, please?”

  With money on the counter and the prospect of a sale, we had no further problems.

  I could have taken a satellite view of the Empire without much trouble, looking down with a magic mirror. The map, however, provided me with more details. It also provided me with borders, invisible from the air, between the various political divisions.

  The Empire is less a unified empire and more of a confederation, in my opinion. According to the map, there are dozens of city-states, some large, some small, and all allied. The closest parallel I can think of is the Greek cities of the Hellenistic period. Each city is self-governing, but all recognize a common culture, enforce similar laws, speak a similar language, and so forth. Hazir told me, later, that the Council of Law would be held in Ti-Reddesh this year, but Sarashda would host it the next. I infer the cities take turns hosting the seat of government.

  Oddly enough, they don’t have an Emperor. There’s a First Speaker who helps run the Council of Law, but the position is held by someone from the city hosting it. They don’t have a permanent chief executive. They do have a setestri, a group of priests, who advise the whole Council of Law regarding what I can only describe as proper morality, though. The separation of Church and State isn’t too clear around here. I suspect the major cities started as city-states under individual kings and princes, but the Temples are a unifying force—an Empire-wide referee to keep the conflicts between cities from escalating.

  It's fine, so far as it goes. I’m not comfortable with the seeds of theocracy, though. Unchecked religion is a weed that chokes everything else.

  As for the geography, the Empire is spread out along the eastern and a bit of the southern coast of the continent. The Kasnakani mountain range slashes northeast-southwest, dividing the continent into two unequal pieces, like a badly-cut cake. The Empire has a quarter, maybe a bit less, while the rest is clearly labeled with many warnings: “Barbarians,” “Dragons,” “Ghouls,” and so forth. There are no terrain features in these areas, so I wonder if the warning labels are genuine or guesswork.

  The northeast portion of the Empire is far enough north I also wonder about their climate. It’s certainly far enough to have a paler-skinned people as the default. Sarashda’s lands are down south and as far west as the mountains allow, parked in a “Y” of the Kasnakani range and a small branch called the Razikian range. The Kasnakani range is to the west of the city’s territory. The Razikian range breaks off from the Kasnakanis further north and trickles southeast, forming a lopsided triangle with the southern ocean as the third side. Sarashda’s province is one of the largest, bordered by mountains and the sea, with Sarashda, itself, off-center eastward on the southern coast, close to the Razikian range.

  I didn’t ask what was beyond the mountains. After all, the warning labels were clear enough.

  I pushed gold coins across the counter. He rolled up the map, put it in a tube, latched the cap on the end, and presented it to me. We exchanged parting pleasantries.

  “He spoke disrespectfully,” Hazir muttered, once we were outside.

  “He’s old,” I countered.

  “He should know better.”

  “I admire his spirit if not his wisdom. Thank you for your guidance, Hazir.”

  “It was my pleasure to be of assistance. I take it, then, you have some idea where you will go?”

  “Not yet. I want to study the map and probably do some exploring.”

  “Wise. I wish you well.”

  “Thank you.”

  Before I left Sarashda, Firebrand reminded me to pick up some fruit.

  Leisel was pleased and perhaps a bit confused.

  “This is… a lot of soap. And a lot of fruit.”

  “I didn’t know what kind to get. At least I stuck to one blanket.”

  “It’s a wonderful blanket. Thank you. Did you also get a towel?”

  “Okay, the towel I forgot. I apologize.”


  “No rush.”

  “I haven’t forgotten about your sword, at least. I’ll get to work on it.”

  “Sure. I’ll… sort soap and fruit. What is this?” she asked, holding up one of the fruits.

  “I have no idea, but it was for sale.”

  She sighed. Is it a woman thing? I’ve heard that sigh before. Do they go to a special school for it? Or do their mothers take them aside one day and teach them to do it? It’s the sigh where I’ve done something, but it’s not too serious and explaining would take too long. It’s the sigh that says, “I want to say something, but I realize it would be a complete waste of time—and I accept the fact it’s just how you are, so carry on.” It’s a very meaningful sigh. It’s different from the exasperated sigh or the frustrated sigh. This is more low-key.

  I focused on my work. It seemed safest.

  I tested the gate on the end of the pipe, using it as a grab gate. It was smaller than the gate I usually used, but I was after something relatively small, anyway. Somewhere, there’s a museum missing part of its display of elements. I held small lumps of titanium, vanadium, nickel, tungsten, chromium, and others, but even a tiny change in an alloy’s composition can have huge results.

  My spells leached traces of metals into the steel, alloying it, and homogenized the whole mixture. A little treatment of the edges and point to harden them meant the physical structure was in good shape. Time to weave some magic through the metal.

  About midway through the first enchantment, a ball of light—now with traces of green in its feathery, internal veins—floated up onto the workbench. I can’t be certain, but it seemed curious about what I was doing. Since it respected the work and kept its distance, I let it watch. When I finished with Leisel’s sword, it drifted over to me and… engulfed? Phased through? Occupied the same space?… as my right hand. Nothing happened, so I held still and let it. Maybe it was the equivalent of an animal sniffing at me. I’m not a ball of light. How would I know?