by Tim Pratt
"I'm sure I'll see you here and there from time to time," Lodger said, and Skiver shook his hand and said friendly things as Alaeron nodded in a distracted way. Mere paranoia, then. Unfortunately, paranoia was a completely rational psychological position in Numeria.
The two Andorens climbed down the ladder and stood in the shadow of the wall. There were watchtowers up above spaced at random but frequent intervals, and Alaeron was keenly aware of the presence of guards with bows and more dangerous weaponry, salvaged and repurposed from Silver Mount and used to repel assaults from enemies and monsters. Bits of metal, from hand-sized to wide as a wagon wheel, were embedded haphazardly in the wall, either to strengthen the stone or (more likely) because the builders thought it looked impressive. To Alaeron's eyes, it just looked messy, glittering jewels draped on a filthy pig.
Starfall was like that in general, except mostly it was just pig, and dispensed with the jewels entirely.
"Welcome to Starfall," he muttered. Then he snapped his fingers. "Hold on, before we go in, I have to open the black box for a moment."
"What for?" Skiver said.
"I need to go inside and change my coat."
"Ha! You want to look your best for Zernebeth, eh?"
"Something like that," Alaeron said.
∗ ∗ ∗
They knocked at the door Lodger had pointed out, and a panel slid open, revealing a rectangular slice of a dirty face with a suspicious expression. "What do you want?"
"I'm Alaeron, here on League business. I'm expected." His new coat was velvet, red with golden trim, and looked either regal or like someone trying far too hard. It was also damnably heavy and hot
The voice grunted. "Who's that with you, then?"
"My manservant." Alaeron smiled to himself as Skiver choked back laughter.
"How do I know you're really you?" the guard said.
That was a philosophical question that could have occupied Alaeron's mind for some time, but Skiver provided a rhetorical shortcut by shouting, "We just arrived on a bloody giant metal scorpion, you git! Open the door and let us in!"
The door keeper muttered to himself for a moment, then unbarred something and swung the door open. "Much obliged." Skiver stepped through ahead of Alaeron.
The door closed behind them, and the guard shooed them away, then leaned against the wall and began chewing on a dirty thumbnail and staring pensively at his shoes. His job was apparently not a stimulating one. He wore a mail half-shirt of adamantine—an expensive substance even here, so he wasn't a common soldier, but a favored servant of the League.
Adamantine was incredibly expensive, but common enough that even ordinary people in Andoran had heard of it, by name or as "Numerian steel." There were other skymetals, though, far more exotic, and mostly unknown outside Numeria to anyone other than scholars and specialists. Djezet was a rusty-red analogue to quicksilver, existing only in liquid form, and crafters of magical weapons sometimes quenched their swords and knives in so-called "quickiron," believing it imparted some magical power—Alaeron wanted to see more research before he believed it. Inubrix, the metal that had probably poisoned Char (if Alaeron's theory was right), was notoriously hard to work with because of its phasing properties—half the time you couldn't even pick it up, as it just passed through your fingers. Siccatite had strange temperature properties, and was always either burning hot or so cold it sent tendrils of vapor curling into the air. Abysium, also known as feverstone, was a pretty, luminous blue-green and probably had mystical properties, but those who worked with it too long sickened and died, sprouting open sores and losing their hair and raving about things reaching out from the dark. Noqual was a pale-green crystal that could be forged and worked like iron, and besides its beauty it had many practical applications, especially seeming to deaden the effects of magic—but it was quite rare. Rarest of all was horacalcum, a common-looking coppery metal that had bizarre effects on the flow of time, causing it to slow down or speed up in the metal's vicinity—armor and weapons made with that skymetal turned the wielder into a terrifying creature of blurred speed or infinite patience. Alaeron had often wondered what it would be like to get enough horacalcum to construct a vehicle, but since it was almost never found in quantities of more than a pound at a time (and that pound was valuable enough to buy a well-appointed inn on a piece of prime real estate), he supposed he'd never find out. Unless he became a leading captain of the Technic League...
"Alaeron, we really should be going," Skiver said.
The alchemist shook himself and blinked. The door guard was frowning at him now, and Alaeron laughed, a bit wildly. "Sorry, sorry. Just...thinking. Haven't been here in a while. Lots of memories, associations, speculations...My mind is running away from me."
"It does that," Skiver said. "So this is Starfall, then. Give me the grand tour."
Alaeron started walking, toward the center of the city. "Ah. Yes. It's a city of some thirty thousand souls, though it's hard to be precise, especially since the number of slaves fluctuates so wildly, as they die or new ones are...acquired." The streets in this district were narrow, the buildings crowding together and made of dull stone, some decorated haphazardly with panels of metal, mosaics of broken colored glass, and shiny black tiles salvaged from wrecks. "I understand this place began as the headquarters for the Technic League, which was then a loose alliance of arcanists dedicated to studying Silver Mount. It grew into a city—the way any mining town might, though the mines here are rather more dangerous than most. In time it was taken over by Kevoth-Kul—the Black Sovereign—after he united the warring tribes and conquered the country. He meant to make this place the capital of an ever-widening empire, but..."
Alaeron trailed off, glancing around, suddenly worried that he might be overheard saying something unflattering about the Sovereign. As they'd moved away from the gate and the guardhouse there, the streets had become more populated, with the citizens of Starfall scurrying from building to building or lurking in alleyways, even the poorest ones in their dull rags wearing bright bits of improvised metal jewelry. Slaves in heavy metal collars shuffled or sprinted as their current tasks dictated. Most of the people (free or slave) were Kellids, dark-haired and deeply tanned, though Alaeron also saw several dwarves, which was no surprise—their prowess at extracting metals from the earth made them valuable as advisors and engineers. He knew there was a small community of halflings here, too, prized for their ability to wriggle into small places other races couldn't easily reach, and usually a smattering of half-orcs, mostly as hired muscle. He didn't see anyone who looked like a guard or a spy, but he lowered his voice anyway: "The Sovereign formed an alliance with the Technic League—it was that, or try to kill them, and they're harder to kill than most. The League plied the Sovereign with drugs from Silver Mount, and his plans to conquer and unite the north...receded in importance as he embraced the pleasures of the flesh and the strange visions the drugs provided him. Kevoth-Kul is still a formidable man, and his will is absolute law here—except when it comes to the League, which has its own, shall we say, parallel power structure—but the Sovereign's once-great dreams are smaller in scope, now. The whole city exists, in a way, to cater to his whims."
"Nice work if you can get it," Skiver said. "His citizens don't seem like the dancing-in-the-streets types."
That was true. Those people who deigned to notice Alaeron and Skiver at all glared suspiciously. "They're not really citizens, not in the way the people of Andoran are. The Sovereign and the League make the rules, and their favored family and friends and allies have some power and influence, too. As for the rest of the people living here, well, even the ones who aren't actually slaves might as well be, at least by the standards of Andoran—subject to the whims of an absolute monarch and the even more terrifying whims of the League. No, not citizens. Inhabitants, maybe. Denizens."
"Victims," Skiver muttered.
They turned a corner and found themselves in a broad square, filled with tents and makeshift booths in
a bustling night market, traders shouting over one another to ply their wares.
"Genuine relics from Silver Mount!" shouted a man selling obvious fakes, carved wood thinly coated in base metal.
"Flour! Hardly any weevils!" shouted another.
"Dried meat! Guaranteed pureblooded!" called a man in a booth festooned with dangling strips of grayish dried flesh.
"Pureblooded?" Skiver said.
"He means it didn't come from an animal with extra legs, or eyes, or tentacles, or fins," Alaeron said. "Which is almost certainly a lie, and irrelevant anyway, since even outwardly ordinary creatures can be terribly twisted inside. Tainted creatures are common here."
"Finest potions! Dangerous drugs!" called a familiar-looking woman with her hair in a multitude of braids, woven with little baubles of shiny metal and glass. Alaeron brightened, walking toward her booth.
"Malica! Are you still selling sugar water and phosphoric acid as a miracle cure?"
The woman's eyes went wide, then narrowed. "Alaeron! Give me one reason why I shouldn't hand you over to the guard for a sack full of gold and silverdisks."
Chapter Thirteen
Palace of Fallen Stars
For a moment, Alaeron felt a flash of fear, then saw the twinkle in her eyes. "Don't be nasty. You know I'm more valuable than silver and gold. Besides, as far as I know there's no bounty on my head. I've been invited back by the League to do a little business."
"I heard a rumor of a rumor about your return, last time I was in the League compound. You got called back by that icy witch Zernebeth, eh? Didn't you leave her for dead?"
Alaeron shrugged. "I suppose. But it was an accident. She's forgiven me, I think."
His fellow alchemist glanced at Skiver, raising one eyebrow. "Who's your friend?"
"Ah, this is Skiver, he's my..."
"I keep him out of trouble," Skiver said. "The wrong sort of trouble, anyway. You're an alchemist too?"
Malica nodded. "The finest in all of Starfall. Though Alaeron here isn't bad, when he gets his head out of the clouds long enough to mix something useful. We used to trade the occasional tip in the old days, though he left town without saying goodbye. In his defense, I suppose people were trying to murder him."
"Still damnably rude," Skiver said.
"How are things with you? And in the city in general?" Alaeron asked.
The alchemist took a sip from a flask, grimaced, then grinned. "Oh, much like always. Not so bad if you've got money, fairly hellish otherwise, I would imagine. There was a bit of upheaval in the League a while back, a few murders in the streets, suspicious fires, charred bodies, people with their heads exploded by mysterious means, a woman who vomited a torrent of tiny metal aphids, that sort of thing. But Zernebeth seems to have things well in hand now, and everyone's behaving themselves, more or less. I still do a lot of consulting for the League, and the Sovereign is always happy to pay a premium for new drugs, so I keep myself occupied and the coffers filled. Come by my house sometime, over in the Street of Lights, I'll show you a good time—I have some mind-enhancing potions I'm working on, they're great."
"I'll do that, if I get half a chance. But we should probably meet up with Zernebeth."
"The League compound is just where you left it, clinging to the palace like a parasite," she said, inclining her head to the right.
Alaeron leaned in and kissed her cheek, feeling irrationally happy at finding a friendly face. His relationship with Zernebeth had been rather fraught—he respected her, feared her, sometimes lusted after her—but Malica was like an older sister. Skiver bid her a friendly farewell, and they continued on through the streets.
"She have many connections in court?" Skiver asked.
"Mmm? Oh, I suppose—she mixes potions and makes matches and alchemical lanterns for all the wealthiest people. Or at least, she did."
"Aha," Skiver said. "Good to know. I may wander back by and see if she can help me unload a few things, reduce the clutter in your black box."
A few more turnings, and they entered the city's central square, blazing with light from alchemical lanterns rising high on needle-thin spires. The buildings facing the square were among the most impressive in the city, with gleaming facades of shining black and silver metal, homes for the wealthiest members of the Sovereign's court.
The square itself was filled with wonders: the legendary quicksilver fountain (surrounded, as always, by dead birds who'd made the mistake of touching the splashing, poisonous liquid); a great adamantine statue of Kevoth-Kul, rippling with only slightly exaggerated muscles, holding aloft his greatsword in one hand and the head of a generic vanquished enemy in the other; and, of course, the citadel of the Black Sovereign, the great Palace of Fallen Stars.
"It's like someone put all the palaces of the cities of the Inner Sea in a dice cup and shook them up and then dumped them down here." Skiver didn't quite gape, but it was a near thing.
"It is a bit much for the eye to take in all at once," Alaeron agreed. Great reflective black marble steps led up to a row of columns carved with the faces of monsters and heroes, all wrapped with shining wire. The columns held up a broad roof topped by a central dome, which in turn was topped by the oversized representation of a greatsword, the dome and sword both gleaming silver in the moonlight. Those features alone, while a bit ostentatious, were reasonable enough for a palace, but whoever had designed this place and made improvements over the years had lacked any sense of restraint, proportion, or decorum. The roof sprouted additional spires, turrets, and towers, with whole sections from salvaged wrecks incorporated into the structure, from bulbous black glass domes to corkscrews of ruby metal. The interior, Alaeron knew, was a maze of corridors, stairs, ladders, and hidden passages, haphazardly connecting all the diverse parts of the palace. "The Black Sovereign holds court in a combination throne room and feasting hall beneath the dome. It's...quite an experience."
"So do we go up and through the front door, then?" Skiver sounded nervous at the prospect, which made sense; on those occasions when he'd entered grand houses, he usually did so through a second-story window in the dead of the night, ideally when no one was home.
"No, we'll go around back, where the Technic League keeps their workshops and laboratories. They're close enough to consult with the Black Sovereign and enjoy the pleasures at court...but far enough away that the odd explosion doesn't hurt the palace itself." He started to walk across the square, then froze as a trio of figures marched down the palace steps toward them.
They were like men, but made of smooth metal, with each helm-like head featuring a single round, red eye in its center. All three of those heads turned and stared at Alaeron and Skiver as they walked past, but they never altered their pace.
Once they'd passed by, Alaeron let out a breath he'd scarcely realized he was holding.
"Those would be Gearsmen, then," Skiver said. "They're a bit eerie, aren't they?"
"That's putting it kindly. They obey the orders of the League perhaps ninety-nine times out of a hundred...but it's the slim possibility of disobedience that makes them so troubling. You can't be entirely sure what they'll do."
"I suppose they're tricky to punish, too."
"They can't be bribed, or compelled. I have no idea why they choose to follow the League's orders even as much as they do. They feel no pain, no fear, nothing at all. Having them as guards is like having a lion as a guard dog. Just because it hasn't bothered to eat you yet doesn't mean it never will."
"Steer clear of those, then. Understood."
Alaeron led Skiver through the square, around the right side of the palace, down a path lined with metal sculptures of flowers (the soil this close to the League compound being far too poisonous for living things to actually grow). The path terminated in a twelve-foot-high wall of shining metal, with a door flanked by two Gearsmen holding spears tipped with complex, glittering points that probably spat lightning or plasma or worse things.
"I am here on League business." When the Gearsm
en didn't react, Alaeron cleared his throat. "Zernebeth is expecting me." Still nothing. "I'm Alaeron—"
The Gearsmen looked at one another, then one tapped the door with the end of its spear. The door didn't swing open, but instead slid sideways into the wall, like a pocket door, but by all appearances moving under its own power. "Ah. This is Skiver. He's with me. He gets to come in, too." There was no further movement from the Gearsmen, so Alaeron walked between them, shoulders hunched and tense, with Skiver close at his heels. The door slid shut behind them with a crack of finality.
The League compound was centered on a huge stone building, almost a palace in its own right, surrounded by miscellaneous outbuildings, greenhouses, smoking forges, slave barracks, silos, and disorderly piles of metal and broken machinery. It was practically a miniature village, and was filled with the bustle of Technic League servants.
"Zernebeth's workshop is in the main building, upstairs, in the largest workshop," Alaeron said, and began winding his way along an ornamental path, set with etched metallic disks instead of paving stones. None of the League paid much attention to the newcomers, the general theory being that anyone who made it past the Gearsmen had a right to be here. Alaeron didn't see many familiar faces, which was good—he didn't have great memories of his time here, and if he was remembered by anyone, it was unlikely to be fondly. He exchanged nods with a hulking Kellid wearing insectlike optics over his eyes, peering at an arrangement of brass gears spread across a worktable. A gnome with milk-white skin and shocking blue hair banged on a lumpy piece of metal as she cackled. A half-orc stood patiently while a willowy woman who might have been a Keleshite stood on a stool and fitted him with a helmet bristling with spikes and wires. A short, stocky fellow with a nest of white hair and a bright steel eyepatch seemingly welded to his face fiddled with a long-barreled object, pointing it at a heap of bricks and whooping with delight when the bricks exploded, scattering fragments everywhere and making Skiver and Alaeron flinch; no one else reacted to the noise or destruction in the slightest.