The Fire Duke

by Joel Rosenberg

  “Hey, Torrie,” he called out in English, “the cavalry’s here.” He was dressed like a rich peasant—trousers bloused in his black boots, a plain bulky overshirt of dull taupe belted tightly at his waist, but it was belted with a swordbelt like Torrie’s own.

  Slapping at his trousers, Ian turned toward the large box, where His Warmth was already on his feet.

  “My name is Ian Silverstein,” he said in Bersmal, not translating his last name. He looked more comical than dignified as he stood with his skinny arms folded across his chest, “although most of you seem to want to call me Ian Silverstone. I am champion for Thorian Thorsen.”

  There were shouts and calls from the crowd.

  The Fire Duke seemed amused as he spread his fingers on the brass rail surrounding his box and leaned forward. “I had not known he requested one, or required one, Ian Silverstone,” he said, loudly. “Nor had I heard that you had prayed for admittance to the City.”

  Ian shrugged. “There’s some hidden ways in and out of the City. I used one,” he said, casually. “And if you’ll just let my friend go, we can simply use it to leave.”

  The Fire Duke pursed his lips. “You don’t seem as deferential as I am accustomed to, and I do not recall owing any favors to the House of Silverstone, if such a house there be. Why should I grant your request?”

  Ian hesitated for a moment—

  “Because that’s been your whole purpose here, Your Warmth,” Uncle Hosea said, lowering himself carefully from the ventilation duct to the floor of the box opposite the Fire Duke. “Because the prize you’ve long sought is here in me, and because that will be an additional stake in my friend Ian Silverstone’s championing. For if he loses, I will put myself, and all that I know, in your hands, in return for the release of young Thorian del Thorian.” There was a spot of blood at the corner of his right eye; he wiped it away with the back of his hand.

  “And why is he so important that you would risk that, Old One?” the Fire Duke asked, mockingly.

  “Because I swore I would, on the day he was born. Because on the day of his birth, his grandfather, who took me in when his father and I were hungry, made me swear I would protect him as much and as well as I could until the day he released me from that oath.” He looked down, fondly, at Torrie. “Never you mind that I’ve seldom had that chance to help raise a young one from birth to adulthood; that’s a joy I’ve rarely been granted. And never you mind that I find myself unaccustomedly fond of him; that’s a feeling you’ll not share. You’ll not understand any of that, Your Warmth, but you’ll understand the oath, and that by my own oath I bind myself to share with you all that I know, should your champion defeat Ian Silverstein here and now.”

  There. It had been said. Torrie had been right: somehow or other, this was all about Uncle Hosea, not him. And somehow or other, the Fire Duke had known that Uncle Hosea was nearby, and had forced this in order to make him reveal himself.

  But Ian? Ian as champion? No. Ian was a better foil fencer than Torrie, but in freestyle or a real bout, Ian wouldn’t stand a chance against an experienced epée player, much less the likes of Stanar del Brunden.

  It wasn’t right. It had to be Torrie, not Ian. Torrie was the one trained from birth for this moment, not Ian. Ian was just, well, just another guy. Torrie was—

  “No,” Torrie said. “I’ll do it. I’ll take it on.”

  Uncle Hosea looked down on him with sad eyes. A long finger came up to the outside corner of his left eye, and brushed away a dark tear.

  A drop of blood. How had Uncle Hosea cut himself near the eye, and what did it mean?

  “Do you trust me, young Thorian?” he asked, his voice slurred around the edges as always. “Will you trust me enough to stand aside here and now and let another defend you and me, knowing that runs contrary to everything you have been raised and trained for? Can you? Will you?”

  Ian stepped in front of him. “And how about me, Torrie? Am I a trusted friend, or just your sidekick?” He quirked a smile. “Maybe next time it’ll be your turn. I have it on … on good authority that this one’s for me, for Ian Silverstein, the loser. The guy who’s just a foil fencer, and not good for much of anything except to be the foil for your sharp wit.”

  Torrie opened his mouth to protest; Ian silenced him with an upraised palm.

  “Some other time, perhaps,” Ian said. He raised his voice. “Do you accept me as your champion?” he asked, loudly. And, sotto voce: “Don’t fuck up on me, Torrie. I’ve come through too much, too far for that.”

  You have to trust your family, your neighbors, your friends. Nobody in Hardwood had ever exactly said that; it wasn’t something that needed saying. It was like breathing: it was something you just had to do.

  Torrie unbuckled his sword and dropped it to one side. “I do.” He glared up at the Fire Duke. “I accept Ian as my champion in this matter.”

  The Fire Duke might as well not have heard him. He looked across at Uncle Hosea. “And you bind yourself to my command should my champion defeat this Ian Silver-stone, this champion of yours.”

  Uncle Hosea nodded. “I do.”

  The Fire Duke seemed somehow more solid and less fat as he dropped his cape to one side. “Then your terms are accepted, and I shall champion my own House.” Moving far more easily than a man with his bulk should have been able to, he vaulted the railing and dropped easily to the sand of the amphitheater. He raised his sword. “Have at you, Ian Silverstone.”

  And in his mind, Ian heard a voice whisper, Make it easy on me, loser, and I shall make your end swift.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The Fencer

  Ian barely had time to draw his sword before the Fire Duke was upon him. Don’t fight. Lie back; let it happen, whispered in his head.

  Shit.

  Ian backpedaled, barely parrying the Fire Duke’s tentative attack.

  Let me make it quick and easy for you. Don’t draw it out. You’ll only embarrass yourself.

  It wasn’t a noble of the Middle Dominion Ian was facing, but one of the Old Ones, a Tuatha, or a Tuarin, or whatever the hell it was. The Old Ones were all shape-shifters to various degrees; this one had taken on the shape of the Duke of the House of Fire for—

  There wasn’t time to think about why; Ian’s sword parried the Fire Duke’s high-line attack as though of its own volition, and as the Fire Duke was about to launch his next attack Ian tried a stop-thrust, which the Fire Duke parried easily. He moved too easily, as though he was a muscular athlete dressed in a balloon suit, and not the fat man that he surely was.

  Don’t raise your hand to me, boy, sounded in his head.

  The voice could have been Benjamin Silverstein’s.

  No, no, no, that didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t the old bastard, not here; the Fire Duke had reached into Ian’s head and found the voice and words from the nightmare Ian had lived.

  Just put down your sword, and let it be over. No more of that silly Robin Hood shit for you.

  It was just foil fencing, after all, about as useful for real combat as knitting. It didn’t teach you to—

  Pain lanced through his arm as the Fire Duke’s blade went past Ian’s defenses, his point barely scoring, but his sword parried again. The rhythms and patterns of it had been trained into his mind and muscles; they weren’t just something he did, they were a part of him. He didn’t have to think in order to fence, not on the level of conscious thought.

  Do it that way, and make it easier on me, and I shall make it easier on you, you little worm. It will all be the same in the end.

  The Fire Duke was right. Ian had no chance. This was a job for a duelist, and Ian was a foil fencer. After all they had been through together, Hosea had suckered him, pushed him to the center of the amphitheater like a chess player pushing a pawn to the center of the board, to be snatched up, perhaps forcing the other player to expose himself, perhaps to protect a more valuable piece, perhaps for some sort of subtle exchange.

  And Ian was just
a fencer, just a pawn, just—

  No. By God, no. Freya had told him that what he was was of value, and he believed in her.

  And by God, maybe I can believe in myself.

  He wasn’t just a foil fencer; he was the best foil fencer that he could make himself, and that was something not only worth doing, but worth being, and if there was a message in Freya’s statue, that was it.

  He could analyze it all day long, how the Fire Duke was fencing like a duelist, avoiding exposing himself anywhere, because his entire body was a target; not pressing an attack unless he had the other’s blade beat fully aside, because in a real duel, it didn’t matter if you beat the other on the attack if his blow landed on a more important part of the anatomy than yours did.

  It was why epée players had almost always been able to beat foil players in real duels, because foil fencing was an art form and a sport, and epée a simulation of a duel. Yes, foil fencing had started out as a simulation of dueling, but not of a real duel, usually ended at the first blood or by disabling the opponent with a series of minor cuts.

  To actually wound an opponent in a way that would score a point in foil would require a hit that would, if real, be at least life threatening, and more likely just plain deadly.

  And none of it mattered anyway, because an ordinary blade can no more end the life of an Old One than a cotton ball could kill you, boy.

  None of it mattered. Ian wasn’t an epée player, and he wasn’t a duelist, and when he saw an opening that would let the tip of his sword touch the Fire Duke just under the armpit—

  —it didn’t matter that lunging for that touch left Ian exposed from toe to head, whether the Fire Duke parried or not—

  —he went for it, the tip of his sword whistling through the air.

  It sank perhaps half an inch into the Fire Duke’s fat before the Fire Duke’s sword pierced Ian’s side, just above the waist.

  Nothing had ever hurt so badly.

  Ian staggered back, his free hand clapped over the wound, as though to hold himself together. His jaws were clamped together, but a sound halfway between a scream and a groan forced itself out through his lips.

  Half-blind in pain, he beat seconde, but all his blade encountered was air.

  He forced himself to breathe. It didn’t matter how much it hurt. He needed oxygen, he needed to see, he needed to move, and without air in his lungs he was dead. Ian sucked air in with a ragged gasp.

  Why wasn’t he dead?

  He forced his eyes to focus.

  The Fire Duke stood ten feet away, the white of his blouse stained with blood every bit as red as that on the tip of his blade, his mouth open, his eyes wide in his piggy face. Dots of sweat speckled his cheeks and lip, and a trace of white spittle was at the corner of his mouth.

  Every movement agony, Ian brought his sword up and took a step toward the Fire Duke.

  It’s not an ordinary blade, Duke, he thought, knowing the other was still reading his mind when the Fire Duke paled ever further. Orfindel made it himself.

  Even if he didn’t know it, he made it for me.

  For me.

  Because he’s right. It’s not a sacrifice; I’m the right man to take you on, asshole. I’m not just Torrie’s friend; I’m what’s needed here and now.

  That’s the secret, you see, Fire Duke, or Tuarin, or Tuatha, or Fire Giant, or whatever you really are. It’s simple: fencing is just that silly Robin Hood shit to my father, and this is all just a game to you. And I’m by no means the best that there is at it, and I only picked it up as a way of rebelling against that bastard of an old man, because he despised it, and I only stayed with it because it fed me.

  But, by God, you old bastard, while I’m not the best fencer that there ever was, I’ve worked hard to make myself the best one that I can be, and that’s what’s called for here.

  You could beat any real swordsman, because you’re fester, because you know how they fight, and you can read their minds, and because they don’t know how to leave themselves wide open the way a foil player does.

  Yeah. You can nibble away at them until they give up or until your little cuts bleed them to death.

  But you can’t do that to me.

  I’m a foil fencer, and I don’t give a damn whether your point gets to me as long as my blade gets to you first, because I’m not trained to go for a cheap little shot to the toe or the knee or the arm.

  Because I’m a foil fencer, fucker, and when I’ve got the advantage, I go for the kill every damn time.

  I can take every cut you give me, I can take everything you can hand out, and I can give you one more, until—

  Ian closed with a running attack that no epée fencer would have ever considered, and lunged in full extension, his form perfect, no attempt to parry, the point of his sword traveling the ideal line, past where the Fire Duke’s blade waited to drink his blood, his muscles and body moving faster than thought would have taken him, and the tip of his blade slid through the Fire Duke’s flesh and into his heart as though it was traveling through butter.

  And if but a fraction of a second after that the Fire Duke’s sharp sword cut through Ian’s own belly, and turned the world into red pain that refused to go away, what of it?

  He had touched first, after all.

  The point was his.

  Ian was lying on the hot sand, the pain … distant? Vague? No, not that. It was there, but it was like it was happening to somebody else, somebody who Ian cared about, but not him, not anymore.

  “Be still, Ian Silverstein,” Hosea’s gently slurred voice said. “I’ve done what I can for the moment. You’ll heal fully, I promise you.”

  “But—”

  Ian opened his eyes. It was hard to focus; the form lying on the sand next to him, its dead eyes staring up at the carved ceiling, seemed too close somehow, but—

  “You won.” Hosea’s dark face loomed above him. “The Fire Duke was a fire giant; he long ago took on the form of His Warmth.” Gentle fingers touched at his forehead, and urged his eyelids shut. “Sleep now. We will talk later.”

  No. He had to—

  To what? He was done, now, for the time being.

  Hosea leaned close and whispered, his breath warm in Ian’s ear. “Your father wouldn’t have been proud of you, Ian,” he whispered, so quietly that nobody else could possibly have heard it, “but that’s just because he’s a fool.”

  Hot tears streamed down Ian’s face, although he couldn’t have said why. It didn’t hurt so much, not anymore.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Profession

  Branden del Branden had seated himself behind the Fire Duke’s massive desk, Lord Sensever having taken up a position to its side. It seemed only fair to Torrie, all things considered, that a noble of Falias should be holding down the seat until Venidir del Anegir could arrive from the Old Keep to take his rightful place as Fire Duke. While there were majors of the House of Flame senior to Branden del Branden—rather a lot of them—none seemed eager to even temporarily occupy the seat that had been held by the imposter.

  For how long? Torrie dismissed it. It probably wasn’t important.

  Ivar del Hival, impatient, paced back and forth, when he wasn’t pretending to examine something in one of the nooks and crannies that decorated the wall. Thorian del Orvald, on the other hand, sat quietly in a chair over in the corner, his single eye watching all.

  “How is Ian Silverstone?” Branden del Branden asked. “I’ve instructed Jamed del Bruno to see he is given the best of care; Lord Sensever has been kind enough to have his Vestri chirurgeon looking in on him.”

  Sensever was idly drawing with his finger on the smooth surface of the desk. “It seems fair, all things considered; I owe him and you rather a lot, speaking for His Solidity.” His smile at Torrie was warm without being effusive. “If nothing else, I suspect that the new Fire Duke won’t want to press the late His Warmth’s claim to Kerniat.”

  “But Ian?”

  “He will be as well as
he can be.” Sensever smiled gently. “Birndel was sucking the poison from wounds in my father’s time.”

  Torrie looked over at Uncle Hosea, who nodded. The nod said all that needed to be: Ian would be fine.

  Torrie flopped down in a chair next to where Uncle Hosea sat. The City had become more of a comfortable place than he had thought.

  He would miss it.

  “We don’t have much time,” he said to Uncle Hosea. “I need to get into the Secret Ways, and home. I’ll need you to guide me.”

  “I’ll come with you, Thorian del Thorian,” Ivar del Hival said, his voice a basso rumble. “Just in case an extra sword, an extra hand is needed.”

  Torrie nodded. That was reason enough, and if there was trouble, it would be good to have another sword handy. With any luck, of course, Dad, Mom, and Maggie had managed to stay ahead of the Sons, and the odds of Torrie being able to catch up in time to do any good were just this side of nil if they hadn’t, but…

  Hosea shook his head. “I can’t tell you where they are. I don’t know.”

  Torrie flared. “Don’t give me that, Uncle Hosea. You built this City; everything about it shouts of your construction. You know where every Secret Way, every hiding place is—”

  Uncle Hosea shook his head. “Not any longer. I—it’s odd that it would be me who fails of faith, but fail I did. I”—he shook his head—“I no longer remember much of it.” He smiled sadly, and tapped a finger at his temple. “It could be said that I should have had more faith in Ian, but the risk was too great. I… took a tool and excised the knowledge, and other knowledge that the fire giant wanted. If he won, he would have little.” He gestured feebly. “As is true for you, I am sorry to say.”

  Lord Sensever’s lips pressed together. “Which makes you rather less of a prize, Orfindel, and rather less in demand, eh?”