by Jeff Grubb
The guards raised their short pikes to let him pass. Tawnos knocked and the unlatched door opened beneath his knock.
Ashnod was working at the table, fitting wires around an animal skull, which had been affixed to her dark wooden staff. She held up a hand as Tawnos entered, “One moment,” she said and looped a small strand through the skull’s nostrils. “There. Done.” She looked up.
There was a curious fire in her eyes that Tawnos had seen before. He had seen it in Urza’s eyes when he was working on a new refinement of an invention, and in the mirror when he himself was helping the Chief Artificer.
Ashnod blinked and the fire banked for the moment, but now that Tawnos had seen it in its full glory, he could still detect it. “Just a little project I’ve been puttering with,” she said, setting the staff aside.
Tawnos looked at the staff and noted that the animal skull fit snugly over the end. “Anything you need help with?” he offered.
Ashnod shook her head. “Just a craft to keep my hands busy.” Then her eyes lit up. “Ah, you’ve brought the wine! I’ll get the goblets! We’ll do a toast, and then take the jug with us to the engine!”
Tawnos set the wine down on the table and seated himself at a bench. “I hope that this is not too late.”
“Not late at all,” said Ashnod, saluting the other apprentice with a pair of brass cups, their stems crossed and clenched in her small fist. “I’m used to working on Mishra’s time. He’s up early and to bed very, very late.”
“The Chief Artificer is much the same,” said Tawnos, pouring the wine. “I’ve learned to catnap.”
Ashnod took her cup. “I never could do that. But that thick coffee they drink in the desert, sanduq, works for me. One cup and I can stay awake for a day and night. Then I fall into a coma from exhaustion.”
Tawnos rubbed the back of his neck. He had had no less than four of the small cups at dinner.
Ashnod raised her goblet. “A toast! To the madmen who are our masters!”
Tawnos blinked. “Madmen?”
Ashnod lowered her cup slightly. “To Mishra and Urza?” she suggested.
“To the brother artificers,” responded Tawnos and returned the toast. Both took a sip of the wine. Tawnos had never cared for the smell or taste of white wine, but after the heavily spiced meal and pungent drinks it was a gods-send.
Ashnod took the seat opposite the tawny-haired apprentice. “So you don’t think our masters are mad?”
“Well, divinely inspired sometimes,” said Tawnos. “But mad?”
“There is a fine line between the two,” noted Ashnod. “Can we say that the gods or madness control them? How many times has your Urza suggested something completely irrational, only to be proven correct?”
Tawnos shrugged. “I always assumed he had a reason for his actions, even if he did not share it with me.”
“Humph!” said Ashnod. “I thought it was a tradition that apprentices always complained about their masters. You were a toy maker, I hear. Didn’t you complain about the master toy maker then?”
“Well, the master toy maker of Jorilin was my uncle, so I never—” said Tawnos, then stopped as Ashnod broke out in peals of laughter.
Ashnod must have read the disappointment in Tawnos’s face, because she quickly cut her chuckling short. “You sound like a baby duck, always following along behind its mother duck. Such loyalty is so sweet. So your first master was a relative, and your new master is…?”
Tawnos shrugged. “He is Urza. He knows more than anyone else I’ve ever met.”
Ashnod looked at Tawnos, and said in a low voice, “Gods below, you’re serious, aren’t you?”
Tawnos shrugged again. “Sure. Why have a mas…a superior who doesn’t know more than you do?”
“But, you know things he doesn’t, right?” said Ashnod, motioning with her now empty cup.
“Well, yes,” said Tawnos, pouring the wine for her, and then, as an afterthought, topping off his own goblet. “But of the important matters, he knows more than I do.”
“And that’s why we stay with them, then? They know more than we do?” said Ashnod.
“In part,” said Tawnos, leaning back. “A small part. I mean Urza is demanding, and precise and hard to follow sometimes when he’s hot on an idea.”
“Mishra’s the same way,” said Ashnod. “And you get the idea that when he explains something to you, its as if he’s reigning himself in, choosing simple words and small ideas that you can understand. And he expects you to keep up with him.”
Tawnos chuckled now. “That’s Urza sometimes. You saw the wind chamber in the orniary? Urza had it built so students could prove their modifications of the ornithopters would not work, saving him the trouble of explaining it and them the trouble of building a full working model.”
“Or nonworking model,” said Ashnod, and Tawnos smiled at that. “Like I said earlier, at the feast, Mishra really envies the sense of place that your brother has. Big palace. School of assistants. Regular supplies.” She paused for a moment, then added, “Beautiful wife.”
Tawnos responded, “There are things in Mishra’s life that Urza envies. There’s the dragon engine, of course.”
“He does?” said Ashnod, looking over her cup. “Urza said that?”
“Once you get away from machinery, Urza doesn’t say much,” replied Tawnos, “but you understand his moods, his looks. What he talks about, and more importantly, what he doesn’t talk about.”
“Ditto for Master Mishra,” said Ashnod. “Or rather, he talks, but he avoids certain subjects. And you can tell what’s on his mind by what he doesn’t talk about. It appears like a genie in the center of the whirlwind.”
“Right,” said Tawnos, “and Urza feels that Mishra has a greater sense of freedom, sometimes. Urza feels that he has to be so responsible for everything, and the desert offers freedom. What’s so funny?”
“Nothing,” said Ashnod, stifling a giggle. “But it’s amusing that the Fallaji are currently in the iron grip of a petulant child-man. If you think the desert means freedom, you’ve never met the qadir.”
“I think Urza would much rather be working on artifacts than trying to support a nation,” said Tawnos.
“Agreed for Mishra as well,” said Ashnod, raising her goblet in another toast. “It’s the love of artifacts that binds them together and probably us to them as well. There’s something about getting beneath the skin of a new device.”
“Understanding a new concept,” agreed Tawnos.
“Unlocking its inner secrets.”
“Understanding the design philosophy behind it.”
“Feeling its power.”
“Comprehending its purpose,” said Tawnos, “and expanding its abilities.”
Ashnod laughed again, and it was a relaxed laugh. “There are so very few of us, you know. I’m one of the few that can talk to Mishra and understand him.”
“I feel much the same way with Urza,” said Tawnos. As an afterthought, “And with you as well.”
“I won’t try to use small words,” said Ashnod.
“I’ll try to keep up,” said Tawnos.
“Its all so difficult,” said Ashnod. “I mean, I feel doubly walled-away from everything. First, a powerful woman among the Fallaji is an exception, not a rule. And second, being an intelligent being among the desert people is so—”
“Frustrating,” suggested Tawnos.
“Exactly,” said Ashnod. “Pour me another.”
“We should see the engine,” said Tawnos.
“There’s time,” she said. “Time for everything in the world.”
Tawnos poured, and said, “I went back to Jorilin a few months ago, and was telling my aunts and uncles what I was doing. And they were very polite and appreciative, but I don’t think they understood my work at all.”
“At least they were appreciative,” said Ashnod. “I get hostile stares from the Suwwardi. But it was the same at Zegon. At first I thought it was because I was a woman, but
then people were distant because I was smarter than everyone else. It’s frustrating, to be smart. It separates you from the rest of the populace.”
“It is difficult being different,” Tawnos admitted.
“And I bet the continual work keeps you away from your family. Your friends,” said Ashnod. “Your wife.”
“I’m, uh, not married,” said Tawnos.
“It wasn’t you I was talking about,” said Ashnod. “But you don’t even have a regular young lady, I’ll bet.”
“Well, I have been busy,” said Tawnos defensively.
“I rest my case,” said Ashnod, slapping the tabletop with the fleshy part of her palm. “Just like Mother Duck Urza. You’re working for the most powerful man in Yotia and you don’t have the girls flocking to you?”
Tawnos shrugged. “What about you?”
“Among the Fallaji? Hah!” She slapped the table again. “I really think they have to have a breeding program to produce such oafs!”
“What about Mishra?” asked Tawnos.
Ashnod’s chuckle died. “Mishra,” she said, and her eyes grew a bit misted. “Early on, yes. But it wasn’t as much a relationship as it was a power thing. Sort of who-can-control-who. And it got old fast, and soon he was back to worrying about his precious engines. I don’t like playing second to machinery.”
Tawnos nodded. So there had been a relationship between Mishra and his pupil, but that was apparently in the past. But there was something else in her words that he almost missed.
“Engines?” asked Tawnos.
“Pardon?” Ashnod blinked.
“You said he worries about his engines,” said Tawnos. “Plural.”
Ashnod pulled up short. “There’s the dragon engine. And the great wain it’s pulling. The Fallaji call that engine a war machine, but Mishra told everyone to not refer to it as such during the talks. It might make the Yotians nervous.”
“Uh-huh,” said Tawnos, filing away that bit of information for later. Perhaps a tour of the war machine was in order as well.
Tawnos decided to push a little further. They obviously weren’t going to get to the dragon engine until the wine was gone, and perhaps not even then. “So does Mishra have the power to enforce a peace?”
“If he wants it, yes,” said Ashnod. “The qadir will whine and moan, but most of the lesser sheiks already back Mishra. The tribal chieftains want it all one way or another. Either the glories of war or the bliss of peace, without a middle ground. They’re like machines that way. Easy to command and control.”
“So what does Mishra truly want?” said Tawnos. “I mean, Urza can help with him establishing his own school, if that’s his goal.”
Ashnod shook her head. “The Fallaji way is not to accept aid, or gifts, or charity. It is to take what they want, through trade, or force of arms, or guile, or whatever else is required. The old warlord figured that out, but I don’t think good Queen Kayla has a clue.”
Tawnos frowned. “Mishra is not Fallaji. He is Argivian, like Urza.”
Ashnod countered, “Mishra has lived among the Fallaji, and come to lead them. He understands their ways better than Urza understands the Yotians. No, Mishra at his heart is jealous of his brother, and wants what belongs to him.”
Tawnos thought of his discussion with Kayla earlier in the day. “The stone.”
Ashnod nodded. “The stone. Mishra told me the one he carried was once a larger stone, split in two through his brother’s actions. Did Urza tell you the same?”
Tawnos worked his mouth, but no sound came out. “We never talked about it, and I never thought to ask.”
“Baby Duck!” spat Ashnod, “Mishra envies his brother his soft life and laboratory and beautiful wife. That’s true. But what he really wants is the stone.”
“Is it worth trading away the Sword Marches for it?” asked Tawnos.
“Its worth talking about trading the Suwwardi Marches for it,” laughed Ashnod. “The Fallaji get what they want, by war or guile. And if everything’s gone well enough, he’s already succeeded.”
Ashnod realized at once that she had said too much, and put a hand over her mouth. At last she said, “I shouldn’t say anything else about that. Diplomatic secrets and all that. We should go see the dragon engine.”
Tawnos rose, his mind running through the events of the past day. Meeting Kayla outside the orniary. The fact she was doting on Urza at the banquet, where earlier they were going at it hammer and tongs. The fact that she was insistent Tawnos get along and not bother Urza. They both had places to be, she had said.
He didn’t say no, she had said.
“I have to go,” Tawnos said.
Ashnod rose across from him. “We have all night.”
“I think I need to talk to Urza,” he said.
“It’s late, even for Urza,” said Ashnod. “Perhaps if I accompanied you.”
“Hopefully not too late,” muttered Tawnos, and paused by the door. He turned and said, “You’ll have to stay here, I’m afraid. This has been a very interesting evening, and I hope that I’m wrong about what I’m thinking, because I would like to talk to you again, later.”
And with that he was gone, and the short pikes of the guards were visible as the door swung shut. Ashnod shook her head behind him, cradling her brass goblet in one hand. Outside, Tawnos was shouting for the guards to find Ambassador Mishra.
Said too much, she thought. And too soon. She shook her head and drained the goblet of the last of the wine.
Then she went to her jewelry box and removed a pair of earrings. She pried the iridescent stones from them and put the skull-headed staff back on the table. Slowly but with practiced skill, she started to fit the small power stones into the skull’s eyes.
* * *
—
Tawnos had to shake Urza awake. The Chief Artificer did not rouse when his apprentice burst into the orniary, nor when he called his name. There was an overturned ewer of the pungent wine on the floor, but only a thin stream issued from its wide mouth. Similarly, a pair of half-empty goblets left sweating circles on the plans on the work desk. Urza was curled up tightly in a blanket, snoring softly, on the day cot he would use when working late or when fighting with Kayla.
Tawnos shook Urza’s shoulder, hard, and the artificer was awake in a moment, sitting bolt upright, his eyelids beating rapidly to blink back the sleep. “Tawnos? What? Is there a fire? What’s wrong?” Beneath the blanket, Urza was half-dressed, and those clothes he was wearing were bunched together in odd shapes.
Tawnos looked at Urza, and said, “Sir, your stone.”
Instinctively Urza’s fingers went to his chest, where the stone normally hung. They closed on empty air. Immediately he raised the hand to touch his neck, but the chain that hung there was missing.
“The stone!” he said, the last dregs of sleep banished from his eyes, replaced by a hot fire. “Where is it?” He immediately began tearing up the bedclothes and blankets.
“Sir,” said Tawnos, “I ran into your wife as she was leaving here….”
“Kayla?” said Urza, looking up. Then his face turned stern. “Kayla,” he said again, a dagger’s edge in his voice.
Urza became a flurry of action, gathering his banquet regalia into some semblance of order. He grabbed the cape, looking for the loops, then abandoned it entirely, cursing and flinging it across the room. Then he was at the door, bellowing for Tawnos to follow.
Tawnos was taller than Urza, and should have been able to catch up to the smaller man easily. But Urza moved as if he was an ornithopter incarnate, gliding through the halls at inhuman speed, passing the guards as if they were no more than ghosts. Tawnos was himself stopped by guards from the guest wing, who informed him that Mishra was not in his quarters. A full search of the wing revealed nothing, they added. Would Tawnos want them to seal the palace and send a runner to the Fallaji encampment to determine if Mishra had returned there? Tawnos hastily agreed, but by the time he concluded this brief conversation, Urza had vani
shed ahead of him.
There were shouts again from the royal quarters as Tawnos approached, but this time both of the voices were male, and booming. In addition, this time the door was open, nearly ripped from its hinges, and Tawnos thought it opened with a sharp kick as opposed to a twist of the latch. From the doorway issued an ever-changing spectrum of light.
Tawnos paused in the doorway and raised a hand to peer past the light. It issued from Urza’s Mightstone, and from Mishra’s gem as well, forming the poles of a magnet, with the light itself acting like metal filings stretched between them. Urza had regained his stone, and now was snarling at his brother across the room. Mishra was shouting something else incomprehensible back at him, the warm smile of the Fallaji ambassador replaced with a feral snarl. Their words were lost in an angry humming of energy between the two stones. Between them, against the far wall, was Kayla bin-Kroog.
Tawnos noticed that Urza was not the only one who had dressed in a rush. Mishra’s clothes were in an equal disarray, and the queen had a sheet wrapped around her torso, clutched at her chest. She saw Tawnos and her face shone with relief. She said something that Tawnos could not hear over the throbbing pulses of the battling stones. She took a step forward, toward him.
Tawnos threw up his hands and shouted for her to stay back. Whatever was happening between the stones, and between the brothers, involved energies he neither recognized nor trusted.
It could have been Tawnos’s shout, or his wave of his arms. Or it could have been seeing Kayla, stepping almost into the energies between the two stones. Or it could have been a moment of weakness on Urza’s part.
But Urza dropped his stone. Only for an instant, and he still gripped it in his hand. But he dropped his stone, and it was enough.
A violent rainbow of energy spewed forth from Mishra’s stone, and slammed into Urza. The lanky Chief Artificer was bodily lifted up by the force of the blow and flung backward, against the armoire, breaking the doors of that cabinet inward from the impact.