by Devin Hanson
Some sense of scale made its way into Andrew’s senses. Perhaps the clouds scudding overhead or a wheeling bird at some intermediary distance finally let him see the storm as it was. It was huge. There wasn’t anything of similar scale in Salia, except perhaps a mountain range. Far to the west, the trailing edge of the storm was visible. The air there was thick with dust, but the violent tumbling of the storm itself was lacking.
For all its size, the storm moved by quickly, and within the hour the only sign of its passage was a vague haze of dust in the air. Through it, the sun shone red, giving everything the appearance of being drenched in blood.
“It went through Nok Norrah,” the driver guessed. “The city stole much of its force.”
Andrew couldn’t guess how they were navigating. The road, such as it was, had been buried beneath the blowing sands, though a glance to the side at the vegetation showed the actual amount of deposited sand probably wasn’t more than a few inches. In places it was deeper, though. About rock outcrops, the sand had drifted higher than his head.
“That is our destination. We will get there tonight?” Jules asked.
“Before dark. We will not be without the blue at night. Not this far into the desert.”
The comment was cryptic, and Andrew could tell the driver had exhausted whatever sharing mood he had been in earlier. The sun was starting to sink down toward the horizon now, and Andrew estimated they had around an hour of daylight left.
“We should get ready,” he suggested to Jules.
“I can’t wait for a real bed and a bath,” she replied. “And some place with decent shade would be good too.”
They busied themselves packing up their belongings. Andrew was surprised to discover that he had somehow collected more odds and ends than he could easily fit into his pack. Before long, the city walls peeked up over the horizon.
They approached Nok Norrah on a curving road that kept the setting sun in their eyes, so it wasn’t until they were nearly within hailing distance of the walls that Andrew realized the oversized gates were painted a startling shade of deep blue. As they grew closer, he saw that the color was no passing fashion. They were freshly painted, and chips and scrapes along the edges revealed a strata of blue pigment that was more than an inch deep.
“Why blue?” he asked Jules as they waited for the gate guards to review the caravan’s papers.
“The Maar believe the color to be invisible to the desert dragons. They paint their gates blue so the dragons can’t see the weak points in their walls and spend their efforts against the stone.”
“Really? Is that true or just a myth?”
Jules nodded at the paint layered thick on the gates. “I hardly think they’d go through that much effort if it didn’t work.”
“Strange. I wonder if it would work on the dragons in the north?”
“It doesn’t,” Jules shook her head. “It’s been tried.”
The guard waved the caravan through, and Andrew got his first look at a real Maar city. He had visited towns close to the border, but never a city as large as Nok Norrah. His first overwhelming impression was that the city was open to the sky. Like Andronath, Nok Norrah had no fear of flying dragons. The buildings were whitewashed brick, square and plumb, the roofs terraced or tiled with brilliant clay. The artwork of the city was in colorful inlay on the walls and bright patterns of brick in courtyard floors. The sun was starting to sink below the horizon, but people still walked about the streets, unafraid of the night.
Marich Shen, the wagonmaster, paced his horse alongside their wagon. “We found a good deal on an empty warehouse,” he called. “It is not far from here.”
“Thank you, Shen,” Jules called back. “We’ll ride with you there and settle accounts.”
Shen gave a half-bow from the saddle and gave the horse its head, moving quickly back to the front of the caravan.
“I’ll miss him,” Andrew said quietly. “He’s like family to me.”
“We talked about this,” Jules replied.
“I know, I know.” Andrew sighed. “I’m not arguing. He plans on taking the long coastal route around to the capital city. I understand the need to find another caravan going directly to Khar Bora.”
“It shouldn’t be too hard finding a caravan going south. We’ll spend the night here and hopefully be on our way in the morning.” She reached out and put her hand over Andrew’s for a moment. “I understand about Shen. He is a good man.”
Shen was right. The warehouse was just a few minutes away from the gate, one of a half dozen or so all built in a row. They were two-story structures with cranes leaning out of second-story openings for hoisting goods up. The whole block of warehouses seemed to be in disuse, though not in disrepair. Andrew couldn’t tell if it wasn’t a prime trading season or if newer structures had been raised closer to the gates and these had just fallen out of favor.
Andrew and Jules jumped out of the wagon after it rolled through the gate and went to find Shen. The wagonmaster was going over some final paperwork with, Andrew assumed, some form of merchant guild representative. Shen scrawled his name on the bottom of a few papers and shook the man’s hand, then turned toward them.
“Lady Vierra, Mr. Condign.”
“I want to thank you,” Jules said, “for the rapid and safe trip. You are a worthy trader and Salia is poorer for your absence.”
Shen waved a hand dismissively. “I did nothing special.”
“Even so.”
“Then the honor was mine. I would carry you all the way to Khar Bora, but my route would be inconvenient for you.”
Typical Maar understatement, Andrew thought. Two months of extra travel as they ran a full circuit around Nas Shahr before finally ending up in the capital city. Personally, Andrew wouldn’t have minded the trip, but with Salia banging shields over the border, they didn’t have the time.
“And it wouldn’t be possible to charter your caravan straight to Khar Bora?”
Shen shook his head, a wry smile on his face. “As I said the last time, Lady Vierra, I have prior obligations.”
Jules lifted her hands in a what-can-you-do gesture and smiled. “I had to ask. Our original arrangements were made in haste, and I wouldn’t want to have caused you a loss in profits on our account.” Jules pressed a small stitched leather purse into Shen’s hands. Andrew heard the unmistakable chime of gold-on-gold within. “Hopefully that will see you clear.”
Shen hefted the purse, one eyebrow raised speculatively. “Lady Vierra, your original offer put me ahead of the cargo, and I did not lose wagon space in the end.” He handed the purse back to her. “I cannot accept your money.”
“But, I –”
“Let me tell you a story,” Shen cut her off. “Once I left a boy behind in a strange city because of the fears of superstitious men. I knew it to be wrong, but now I have certainty. In this trip, not I, nor my watch, have seen a single dragon overhead. Not one. I may be a simple merchant, but I know it has something to do with the two of you. For that, I should be giving you a purse of gold, not the other way around. It would be only fair to repay a debt.”
Andrew shared a glance with Jules. Not a single dragon? Ava must have had something to do with that. “Shen,” Andrew started to say.
“Mr. Condign,” Shen said, “I find myself in the position of leaving you in yet another strange city. This time, I think, you are well prepared to handle it. I find myself comfortable in my dealings with you and the lady, and that is something that happens rarely enough to value the opportunity when it comes. I will hear no more on the subject.”
“Thank you, sir.” Andrew said, and was surprised to find himself suddenly enveloped in a bear hug from the other man.
“Take care of yourself, lad,” Shen said. “Now, if you do not mind, I have wagons to unpack. My Lady.” He gave a short bow to Jules and left them staring after him.
“That was unexpected,” Jules said, bemused. She bounced the purse in her hand, then put it back in her pocket.
“If all the men of Nas Shahr are as honorable, our trip will be a short one indeed.”
Their wagon driver came up to them then, panting under the weight of their bags. He refused a tip and waved goodbye as he hurried back to assist with the unloading. And as fast as that, Andrew suddenly felt like an unwelcome spectator. They weren’t part of the caravan anymore; they weren’t even customers, just a pair of extra people blocking an increasingly busy walkway.
“Let’s go find an inn,” Jules said and hefted her pack up onto one shoulder.
“With a bath?”
“Right in one.” She looked back toward the exit, and saw it was bustling with people unloading wagons and running back and forth. “Let’s cut through the next warehouse. We’d only get in the way.”
Andrew picked up his own pack and followed Jules. The next warehouse over was dark and abandoned. The only light was the last ruddy rays of light from the setting sun finding crevices in the front wall and setting aglow motes of drifting dust.
“Locked,” Jules muttered as she reached the front of the warehouse and tested the door. “Burn it.”
“We should just go back,” Andrew shifted the weight of his pack. The last thing he wanted to be doing right now was stumbling around in an abandoned warehouse. He wanted a hot meal, a bath and a soft bed, not a broken ankle or a city guard yelling at him for trespassing.
“Come on, Andrew. Where’s your sense of adventure?” Jules set out across the warehouse toward the next door over.
Andrew sighed and followed. His stomach protested the delay with a grumble of its own. The next warehouse had an open second-story portal. Drifts of sand heaped in the corners and around support columns, testimony to the storm that had passed through earlier in the day.
“There are footprints here,” Andrew called ahead to Jules. His eye followed the footprints to where they disappeared up a ladder to a loft. Suddenly, he felt eyes on his shoulder blades and he turned his head, scanning around the loft.
Jules had walked ahead and was halfway to the front door when it swung inward and a group of men and women walked in. Andrew couldn’t place the colors or insignia, but all of them carried themselves like soldiers. They spread out, hands buried within voluminous robes.
“You there!” one of the new arrivals, a tall man in maroon robes, called out, striding forward. “Where is Burrat? We have come to collect our package.”
Andrew knew enough Maari to follow along, suddenly glad he had taken the time to refresh the bits he had learned in his youth and expand on his vocabulary while traveling with Shen’s caravan. “We do not know Burrat. We are just passing through,” he called.
Jules had come to a halt when the door swung open, and now was glancing back at Andrew, confusion on her face. She must have seen something there that worried her as she started drifting to the side toward the dubious cover of a row of support pillars.
“Where is Burrat?” the man demanded.
Andrew heard a zipping sound as the man spoke, and one of the soldiers in the rear sagged back against the door frame. Something was wrong with the man’s face, but he couldn’t make it out in the gloom. Tiny gods, he swore to himself, trust our luck to wander right into the thick of this. With an effort, Andrew kept his face still and his eyes on the leader. He focused on the dragon scale hanging about his neck, pictured the shielding runes in his mind, prepared to call them out.
“She is here,” a man dressed in flowing sand-colored robes, his face obscured by a featureless leather mask, called out to the leader, and he drew a long curving sword with a ring.
Andrew heard the zip again and another of the soldiers sagged back, his hands clawing at the sudden clump of feathers stuck to his throat.
Chaos, then. Slim crossbows swung up into two soldiers’ hands and blades rang free of scabbards. “Ban!” Andrew screamed, slamming his will into a wide, solid shield. No time for finesse. With a shrug, he cleared his pack from his shoulders and ripped his own sword free. A pair of quarrels slammed into his shield and the impact staggered him back half a step. The shield was centered on him, and any kinetic force the shield took transferred back to him, to the center of his chest.
Glad he had put as much strength into the shield as he did, Andrew caught his balance, tried to see where Jules was. He needn’t have worried. She had her own shield up, her rune-carved short sword in one hand. A pair of soldiers leapt to engage her, and she moved effortlessly to meet them.
“Doco’lani,” the man in the maroon robes hissed. The man was an alchemist! Andrew had never heard the Saying before, but he knew what it meant instantly, the words in the dragon tongue clear as the Salian he spoke natively.
Andrew ducked to the side, anticipating the sudden shriek as nails ripped themselves from the loft flooring overhead and shot down at him with more force than a quarrel from a crossbow. No time to throw up another shield, Andrew threw out a hand and cried out his own Saying. “Igan’anir!” Fire lanced from his fingertips, not the billowing roar of dragon breath, but a honed bolt of white-hot combustion, fed and bound by a rush of focused air.
Windblown sand kicked up into the air in the wake of the Saying, shrouding the fight in a haze of drifting dust. A man screamed and burned as Andrew’s Saying found a mark, but the sand kept him from seeing if it was the alchemist.
A female voice cried out in Maari, “Malik, this is the end for you!”
Andrew saw a robed figure swing down from the loft on a rope, her face covered in the same leather mask. She impacted with a soldier and vanished into the dust cloud. Andrew dashed to the side, saw the woman facing off with the masked man. They were alone, now, the other soldiers lying dead in the swirling dust. Andrew saw the alchemist had evaded his Saying, the burning man was dressed in sand-colored robes, not the maroon the alchemist wore.
A glance to the side showed Jules had won clear of her attackers and was on her guard, warily watching the other two as they fought.
The two masked antagonists were evenly matched. The man had height and reach on the woman, but she was every bit as fast as Jules, a dervish with a scimitar in one hand and a long curved dagger in the other. The man, Malik, fought tightly focused, trying to find a way to use his strength against the speed of the woman, but was unable to put together an attack before he had to switch to the defensive again.
Their dance of death was beautiful to watch. The woman was lithe, balletic, her strikes lightning fast and raining down in tightly controlled strikes that caught the light of the setting sun and sent it splintering about the warehouse. Malik fought with stately conservation, his longer sword and reach keeping the woman at bay, each step and parry performed with perfect balance and precise effort.
The end came, almost too fast for Andrew to follow. Malik flagged in his parry just a little bit, the constant strain of fending off the woman sapping his strength. The woman’s dagger suddenly flashed red and wetness bloomed darkly against Malik’s leg. Malik tried to shift his weight, parried away the next dagger thrust, then the woman’s sweeping scimitar took his hand off at the wrist. The swing was choked off and the blade reversed so fast that Andrew didn’t see the stroke that severed Malik’s head cleanly.
Andrew stared, his mouth agape, stomach lurching at the sudden death, and stumbled back a step as the woman screamed a wordless cry of rage at the ceiling.
She swung around, her chest heaving as she fought for air, the bloody scimitar pointed at Andrew’s chest. “Alchemist!” she cried, “Explain yourself!”
Chapter 10
A New Alliance
Iria panted, struggling to catch her breath. The fight with Malik had taken a toll on her she wouldn’t quickly be recovering from. Malik’s death settled deep within her with fierce exaltation giving her the energy to hold her sword unwavering at this scraggly alchemist. His pale skin betrayed him for a Salian, if his height and blue eyes did not.
Despite the alchemist’s youth, he had undeniable power. She had little doubt she could take the man down were she fre
sh, but after killing Malik, she wasn’t so certain. Not that she was going to show the slightest weakness to him. For all she knew, the man was in league with the un-killable alchemist and equally immortal.
“Speak!” she demanded. “Who are you, why are you here?”
The man spread his hands, his eyes fixed on the point of her sword. Somewhere mid the gesture he seemed to realize he still held a sword of his own, a Salian blade, thin and straight. He sheathed it awkwardly and repeated the gesture again sans encumbrance.
“My name is Andrew Condign,” he said in halting Maari, clearly fumbling for words as he went. “I promise it was not my intention to interrupt…” he waved one hand, encompassing the windrows of bodies strewn about, “your business.”
“I would have your name,” the other woman said, striding over to stand next to Andrew. Unlike the man, she did not put up her blade, and held it with the idle confidence of an accomplished killer. The woman spoke in Salian, which Iria spoke little of, enough to get by if she had to.
“My name is Iria Mian. I am a lieutenant of the Emperor’s balai.” She didn’t see the flash of recognition and respect she was used to, and it threw her off her stride a moment. Andrew translated her words to Salian, though ‘balai’ came through unchanged. They did not know who and what she was. “What is your name?” she asked in halting Salian. It had been some years since she last had occasion to use the language, and the vocabulary was slow in coming back.
“Oh, she speaks Salian,” the woman sighed in relief. “I am Lady Jules Vierra of the Salian royal court and guild alchemist.”
Two alchemists! Iria frowned. “And you, Andrew Condign, are you also a guild alchemist? A lord perhaps? A prince in disguise?”
He shook his head firmly. “No. I am just Andrew. No titles.” The last was said firmly to the Lady Jules, his gaze commanding.
No title. She fought down a disbelieving laugh. Nobody ordered nobility around with such surety without a hefty title of his own to back it up. Confirming her suspicion, Jules merely nodded an acknowledgement.