by D. P. Prior
“Yeah,” Weasel said, “well, they ain’t now.”
“The wizards used to tend them with sorcery.” Nameless had never really liked the idea, but at least it had been better than this.
It was like no one cared anymore. Judging by the bowed tree limbs, the vines and creepers, the litter strewn across the overgrown lawn, Master Arecagen and his cronies had better things to do with their time than gardening. Things like trafficking husk children.
Inside, the air was thick with must and sulfur, heavy with damp. The circular reading room to the right of the vestibule was as he remembered it, and it was buzzing with students. Its balconied tiers rose all the way to the ceiling, where globes of glowing crystal hung from silver chains. Every level was crammed with bookshelves, and the ground floor was dotted with desks, each with its own mounted crystal exuding a soft light to read by.
On the opposite side of the antechamber was the main exhibit room of the Academy’s museum. There were skeletons of all manner of bird and beast, some monstrously huge; some creatures of nightmare that could only have been brought over the Farfall Mountains from Qlippoth, before the movement of husks was made illegal. All covered in cobwebs and dust now.
Shadrak went on ahead to the far end of the vestibule. He said something to the crone behind the reception desk, and she nodded him through to the corridor beyond.
As Nameless started after him with Weasel and the girl in tow, someone called out, “Nameless! Oh, my gawd, Nameless!”
He knew who it was even before he turned back to the reading room.
“Nils?”
The lad came tearing across the floor, balancing a stack of books under his chin. Only, he wasn’t a lad anymore. He was older, taller, and he had a wisp of beard bordering his chin. He wore the black gown of an academic, and a mortarboard sat atop his shock of wavy hair. You could tell the amount of reading Nils had been doing—he couldn’t read a word when they’d first met—by the spectacles perched on the end of his nose.
Nameless knew his face must have looked as blank as the husk girl’s. He was aware of his jaw hanging slack, not so much with surprise as with bewilderment. Bewilderment he hadn’t considered he might run into his old friend, in spite of knowing Nils had been accepted by the Academy after they’d returned from Qlippoth together. It must have been the dread about what had happened to Arnoch messing with his brain. But he was also bewildered about what he felt, how to react. There were so many confusing emotions, so many memories that made him mourn, made him tremble, but most of all made him proud.
If Nils felt the same way, he didn’t show it. There was no hesitation as he simply dropped his books on the floor and threw his arms around Nameless’s neck.
“It’s good to see you, Nameless.” His voice was deeper than before, but it would be, wouldn’t it? Back then, Nils had been one step away from boyhood. Now, he was a young man.
Nameless gave him a hesitant pat on the back, then another when Nils squeezed him tighter.
“Laddie, you grapple like a baresark. Easy now, or you’ll crush an old dwarf’s ribs.”
Nils jumped back, as if he’d done some serious harm. “Oh, gawd, I’m sorry.”
Nameless chuckled, and the look of worried horror that had claimed Nils’s face sloughed away as he realized his leg had been well and truly pulled. He wagged a finger, and then gave Nameless a playful punch in the belly. His eyes went suddenly wide.
“What?” Nameless said, sucking his gut in.
“Need to cut back on the beer and cakes, my friend.”
“Really?” Now Nameless was getting worried. He’d had a six-pack last he checked. Surely a dwarf couldn’t lose that amount of definition overnight.
Nils guffawed, and this time, his finger wag said, “Got you back.”
Nameless grinned and clapped a hand on the young man’s shoulder so he could get a good look at him. “Laddie, you’ve grown. And what’s this with the facial hair? Anyone would think you’d been infected with dwarven culture.”
That brought a blush to Nils’s cheeks. “Yeah, well, I thought it made me look more old, like.”
“Not if you were a dwarf, it wouldn’t. We’re born with beards. It’s how they yank us from the womb.”
“Really?” Nils’s voice went up an octave, and to Nameless he was once more that hapless boy that had gone through so much with him. The frightened lad so full of bluster. The youth who’d found his heart, and proven it was bigger than any man’s Nameless had ever met.
“Oh, yes, laddie. Really. Our babies have beards; our women, too. The only folk who don’t are goat-shaggers and drinkers of Ironbelly’s.”
“Watch it,” Weasel grumbled.
“The former have their beards shaved off as a warning to farmers; and the latter… well, theirs just start to molt. The more you drink, the worse it gets, which is why Weasel’s here is so straggly, isn’t that right, laddie?”
Weasel’s hand went to his beard and gave it a little tug. When no hair came away, he rolled his eyes and said, “Funny. You’re a barrel of laughs, mate.”
“Are you shoggers coming, or what?” Shadrak called from the open door at the far end of the vestibule.
“Is that…” Nils started, whipping off his glasses for a better look.
“Aye, that’s Shadrak all right,” Nameless said.
“Yeah, well,” Nils said, resituating his glasses on his nose. “I got a class to teach.” He stooped to pick up his books, and Nameless gave him a hand.
“Class, laddie?”
“Reading for the poor kids. Graduated, I did,” Nils said. “Told Silas I would, didn’t I?”
Thought of the wizard and what had happened to him set the cold clutch of ice on Nameless’s heart. Nils must have felt the same way, for the light went out of his eyes, and the stack of books he’d regathered now seemed to weigh him down like they were iron plates.
“You’d have made him proud, laddie. And you’ve made me proud. I think Silas knew you’d succeed, once you put your mind to it.”
Nils smiled at the compliment, but it was a smile tinged with sadness.
“Do you think… I mean, after what Blightey did to him… Do you think—?”
“He’s at peace now, laddie. Of that I have no doubt.” But he did, really. Otto Blightey, the Lich Lord, had set an elaborate trap, and poor Silas had fallen for it. By the time he realized, it was too late, and Blightey took his body as a housing for his own evil skull. Silas’s head had melted away like wax.
“For shog’s sake,” Shadrak said.
Nameless cast a look over his shoulder at the midget, who was pacing back toward them.
Nils lowered his eyes and seemed to hunker down in his robe.
“I read you book, laddie,” Nameless said.
Nils looked up at that. “Was it… Did I…”
“It was a nice thing you wrote about the lassie.”
Nils blushed again.
It had been obvious how sweet Nils had been on the shapeshifting assassin. Nameless had, too, for a while, especially when she turned herself into a dwarf for him. But Nils had been young and naive, and Ilesa… she’d had other things on her mind, and a long way yet to go before she could trust herself, let alone anyone else.
“Saw her a while back,” Nils said. “Just brief, like. She needed some information from our library and got me to look it up for her.”
“Oh?”
Nils shrugged. “Didn’t ask. She looked good, though. Word is”—he leaned in for whisper as Shadrak drew near—“she had the run of the guilds for a while.” He didn’t need to add, “His guilds.”
“What’s the shogging hold up?” Shadrak said. He narrowed his eyes at Nils. “Fargin. How’s your dad?”
Nils mumbled into his chest. “Gone. Didn’t make it through the last guild war.”
“Shame,” Shadrak said with as much sincerity as a politician. “Still, these things happen.” He turned away from Nils and took hold of the husk girl by the arm. “Come on, darling. Your new
owner’s waiting.”
The girl glanced at Nameless, and this time there was an expression on her face: a look of fear and pleading. Her eyes strayed past Nameless to the doorway Shadrak had come out of.
In the entrance stood a tall man holding a staff. He was robed in red, with a high collar that framed his head. His beard was braided into a trident, and his salt and pepper hair stood on end, like he’d had a near miss with lightning. Unlike Nils, Master Arecagen didn’t seem to have aged a day since Nameless had seen him on that first trip to the Academy.
“She’s for him?” Nils said, still keeping his voice low as the wizard glided across the floor toward them.
“Nothing to do with me, laddie,” Nameless said with a nod in Shadrak’s direction.
Weasel spread his hands. “Don’t look at me, neither. I’m just a messenger. This shit ain’t my style. That’s if it is shit, which I’m guessing it is, seeing as it has the look of it.”
Shadrak was already dragging the girl to meet the wizard.
“She a husk?” Nils said. “From Qlippoth?”
Nameless nodded.
“I don’t know what exactly,” Nils said, “but he does things to them. I hear the wizards talking, the young ones that take my reading class. Whatever it is, it ain’t good.”
“It feels wrong?” Nameless said. He’d been feeling it from the outset, when Shadrak first told him of his intentions to sell the girl to Master Arecagen.
“Like Silas and that grimoire,” Nils said. He meant Blightey’s grimoire, the dark tome that had led Silas astray, and ultimately cost him his life.
That was enough for Nameless. He turned on his heel and strode after Shadrak. He was dimly aware of Nils scurrying for the cover of the reading room.
“A girl?” Arecagen was saying. He leaned on his staff to get a better look at her. “What does she do?”
“Shog knows,” Shadrak said. “Wasn’t part of the agreement. You want husks. She’s a husk, unless you’re gonna tell me it’s suddenly grown fashionable for New Londdyr toffs to send their daughters to the dark side of Aethir for life experience.”
A faint dweomer exuded from the gem atop Arecagen’s staff. “No, she’s a husk, right enough. The only question is, what kind of husk? All will be revealed. It’s in the blood, you know.”
He grabbed the girl’s arm. She snarled and bit him on the back of the hand.
“Insolent whelp!” Arecagen said. He went to strike her, but Nameless caught hold of his wrist.
“Change of plan, laddie. I don’t think she likes you.”
Arecagen shot a murderous look at Shadrak, then let the full brunt of his ire fall on Nameless.
“What? How dare—”
Nameless squeezed, and something popped in the wizard’s wrist. Arecagen barely suppressed a whimper.
“Nameless!” Shadrak said. His hand strayed to one of his flintlocks.
“You don’t want to be doing that, laddie.”
Shadrak’s pink eyes flicked from Nameless to Arecagen to the girl and back. They turned a shade darker, till they looked like they were bleeding.
“You object to this transaction?” Arecagen said, doing his best to sound authoritative, despite his eyes brimming with moisture, and his lips trembling from the pain in his wrist.
“You could say that,” Nameless said.
“Then take it out on the Senate,” Arecagen said. His voice was getting higher the tighter Nameless squeezed. “They’re the ones who cut my funding, set the Academy on the path to wrack and ruin. If it hadn’t been for the boy’s book royalties,”—he flicked a look past Nameless toward the reading room—“we’d have had to close.”
“So, trafficking little girls is going to restore your fortunes?” Nameless said. “Nice.”
“More than that,” Arecagen said. “There is power in their blood. With enough subjects, and a little more time, I’ll be in a position to teach the Senate a lesson they’ll never forget.”
The girl turned and ran—straight into the arms of Weasel.
“Now, now, girlie,” the rogue said. He looked her up and down and raised his eyebrows. “Everything’s gonna be all right. Uncle Weasel will see to—”
His jaw froze in mid sentence.
Shadrak’s hand stopped halfway to the knives in his baldric.
Nameless felt it, too: the petrifying touch of wizardry. His heartbeat was a torpid sloshing in his ears. His limbs grew heavy, his thoughts sluggish.
Arecagen’s staff twirled before him, its glowing tip leaving a trail of crimson in its wake.
Nameless dug deep, found that vein of rage that he kept locked away in the dark space within. Better wizards than Arecagen had tried this with him. Scuts like the Lich Lord, Blightey.
Arecagen tugged his wrist free and took on an imperious tone. “I will not have my work thwarted by—”
Nameless punched him in the mouth.
For an instant, Arecagen stood there as petrified as the victims of his magic. Then, like a portent of doom, a single tooth clattered to the floor.
Nameless swung for him again, this time catching him with an uppercut to the jaw. There was a resounding crack, and Arecagen pitched to his arse. His eyes opened wide, and a confusion of grunts and slurring spilled from his lips.
Nameless stepped in for a third punch, but the wizard’s eyes rolled up into his head, and he keeled over backward. He hit the floor with a thud.
“Ouch!” Weasel said, suddenly snapping alert and rubbing the back of his head in sympathy. “That had to hurt.”
“You all right, lassie?” Nameless asked the husk girl.
She just stood there beside Weasel, staring blankly ahead once more, hands clasped before her.
Nameless turned to face Shadrak. “Are we all right?”
Shadrak shook his head at the prone body of Arecagen. “You have any idea how much you just cost me?”
Nameless was dimly aware of Weasel slinking past him to examine the wizard.
“Oh, laddie, you really think he had the money to pay you? I imagine he’d have turned you into a toad to avoid the debt. But don’t you worry. I’ll cover your costs.”
“Yeah? How’s that, then? Shadrak asked. “You still gotta pay me for the gym, remember? And that’s peanuts compared to what he was supposed to give me.”
“Oh ho!” Weasel said, standing up from Arecagen’s body and holding aloft the gem that had capped his staff. “How many tokens do you suppose that’ll fetch me back home?” His face suddenly dropped. “That’s if there is a home, anymore. If they’re not already dead.”
Nameless sighed and gripped Weasel’s shoulder. “Don’t give up before we’ve even started, laddie.”
“No,” Weasel said. “You’re right. Shogging crazy, but right. I mean, there’s gotta be some way of beating this dragon and raising the city again, ain’t there?”
“That’s my boy,” Nameless said. Though it was an effort to inject confidence into his tone. If Cordana had told him to stay away, it made sense this threat was beyond him. She knew Nameless better than anyone else. She’d seen what he could do with and without Paxy. But despair was an enemy he’d never surrendered to, even in his darkest moments. He wasn’t about to give it any quarter now.
Shadrak grabbed the gemstone from Weasel’s hand. “Tokens? What the shog’s that?”
“Heh, that’s mine,” Weasel said.
“Everyone’s equal in dwarven society,” Nameless said. Weasel may have snorted at that. “Equal rations, equal pay. Everyone gets a home big enough for the entire extended family, a job to do based on aptitude, time to rest, time to play. And for the most part, there’s an equal devision of tokens that can be exchanged for most anything you want: you know, beer, mead, ale.”
“Yeah, well my marketplace is bigger and more lucrative,” Shadrak said. “There are wizards in New Londdyr who’d pay shitloads for shit like this. Consider payment made.” He held up a finger. “Not the gym, mind. You still owe me for that.”
�
�There’ll be more,” Nameless said. “A lot more, if you help me.”
“How’s that, then?” Shadrak asked. “You ain’t got two brass dupondii to rub together, and I’ve got shog-all use for beer tokens.”
“King Arios’s treasury,” Nameless said. “The Council still haven’t decided what to do with the Arnochian king’s coffers. If we save my people from this dragon thing, I’m sure I can persuade them to release something in the way of a reward.”
“How sure?”
“Pretty.”
“You better be.”
Nils came shuffling along the vestibule, this time without his stack of books.
“Is he…” he started, edging toward Arecagen’s laid-out body. “I mean, he saw us talking. I need this job.”
“Don’t worry, laddie,” Nameless said. “I reckon he needs your royalties more than you need his job. But if he says anything to you, tell him I’ll be back.”
Nils grimaced and nodded. “I have a…” He gestured with his thumb over his shoulder.
“I know, laddie. You’ve a class to teach.”
Nils gave him a grateful smile. “It’s been good seeing you, Nameless.”
“You, too, Nils.” Nameless took his hand.
Nils yelped.
“Sorry,” Nameless said, releasing his grip. “I don’t know my own strength sometimes. Are you hurt?”
Nils backed away, pointing a finger and chuckling.
Nameless shook his head. “Aye, you got me there, laddie.”
When Nils turned his back and disappeared into the reading room, Nameless swallowed down a wad of emotions. He’d missed the lad’s company, but more than that, it reminded him how much he missed what he’d left behind at Arnoch. How much he missed Cordana.
“Right,” Shadrak said, “I’m done here. Plane ship?”
Nameless clenched his fist, as if the action could somehow stop the trembling inside, the worry that he might never again see his people; might never again see Cordana.
In his other hand, a ripple ran through Paxy’s haft, and, though she said nothing, he could sense her eagerness to leave.
But what about the husk girl? She was still standing there as vacant as an inebriated baresark. They needed to get her away from Arecagen’s clutches, that much was certain, but then what? Drop her off in Qlippoth on the way to Arnoch, and leave her to sink or swim? Even thinking such a thing didn’t sit right with Nameless. Having rescued her from the wizard’s clutches, he now felt she was his responsibility. Until she took off by herself, or told him what she wanted, he didn’t see he had much choice but to bring her along.