The Iron Ring

by Auston Habershaw

“Perhaps the point is that I am not a murderer,” Reldamar snapped. “Have you considered that?”

  Myreon felt a cold hatred bubble up from her stomach. “Amos Claret, Venn Wasmeer, Sylva Arteen, Evard Hamson, Carlis Dogger, Hacklar Jaevis.” She spat the names like poison darts.

  Reldamar’s face was stony. For a moment the only sound was the rain beating on the windows. “I suppose those are all ­people in your ser­vice I’ve killed.”

  “You suppose correctly.”

  “They were trying to kill me, you know. That makes a difference.”

  “They were trying to apprehend you. That makes a difference.”

  It was Reldamar’s turn to look out the window. “What, then? Do you want an apology? ‘I’m sorry Magus Alafarr that I didn’t go meekly in shackles to be made into a statue’?” The smuggler snorted, “Fat chance.”

  Myreon said nothing. The faces of those five men and one woman came swimming up out of the depths of her memory. She recalled conversations she had with them, remembered the sounds of their voices. They had been good ­people, every one. Even Jaevis had been noble, in his way.

  Reldamar swirled his wine around his glass. “Well, Jaevis was trying to kill me. He even said so.”

  “Doesn’t change anything,” Myreon said. “It also doesn’t answer my initial question.”

  Reldamar shrugged. “I thought I’d already answered it. It isn’t my fault you won’t accept the explanation.”

  Myreon frowned. “Am I supposed to believe you’ve somehow acquired a sense of mercy?”

  “No . . . no, of course not,” Reldamar answered hastily, and Myreon noticed he withdrew his right hand to beneath the table.

  She wondered if the smuggler had a weapon hidden there, but discarded the notion as foolish. Reldamar might have poisoned the wine, but there was no way he was going to put a knife in her heart or discharge a deathcaster in his own dining room. She recalled then the plain iron ring she had noticed on Reldamar’s right hand during their journey. It had looked incongruous on the vain smuggler’s fingers, but she wrote it off as part of Reldamar’s “common folk” disguise. He wore it with as much apparent distaste as the rest of his crude clothing at the time—­constantly scowling at it and scratching the skin around it, as though it burned to just wear it. She’d assumed it had been thrown away as soon as they entered Reldamar’s home. But what if . . .

  “May I see your right hand?” Myreon asked.

  Reldamar’s face was an unreadable mask. “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  “It seems a strange request.” Reldamar shrugged.

  “Please, I insist.”

  “You aren’t in the position to ‘insist’ upon anything, Myreon.”

  “You are trying awfully hard to not show me your right hand, Tyvian.”

  Reldamar pursed his lips together, probably considering another retort, but then sighed. With visible reluctance, he held up his right hand. There, on his ring finger and partially obscured by an ostentatious silver ring, was the gray-­black band of plain iron.

  In spite of herself, Myreon smiled. “You can’t take that ring off, can you?”

  “It is a size too small. I plan on having it cut off tomorrow.”

  Myreon nodded—­the explanation was plausible. “How did you come by it?”

  Tyvian shrugged. “Stole it from a farmhouse. The same place I found the furs and such for me and the boy. I really don’t understand your interest in it.”

  “You never mentioned how you made it out of the river alive that night. Surely the fall should have knocked you unconscious, and the water was cold enough to kill.”

  “We were assisted by a local fisherman.”

  “Who was fishing in the middle of the night and dove in to save two strangers?”

  Reldamar glared at Myreon. “Galaspiner hospitality is greatly underrated, I have found.”

  Myreon smiled. “That ring isn’t the wrong size—­it’s meant not to come off. It’s enchanted, and with Lumenal energy no less. That was why my seekwand didn’t spot you in the tent that morning. You were in an obscuring ley, so it defaulted to the boy—­the next closest thing to you.”

  Reldamar clapped his hands slowly, a sardonic expression on his face. “Congratulations. You’ve earned dessert.”

  “What does it do?”

  “That is none of your—­”

  “Let me guess!” Myreon blurted. “You can’t kill me, because it won’t let you.”

  Reldamar rolled his eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. It let me kill Jaevis.”

  “Self-­defense, as you yourself pointed out. But when I was on the floor of the barge, half frozen to death, it wouldn’t let you. That’s why you made that face before pulling me back into the barge. I remember you even looked at the ring!” Myreon was halfway out of her chair.

  Reldamar had a bitter, deflated expression on his face—­it was one to savor, so she basked in it while waiting for the smuggler to respond.

  “Very good, Myreon—­you get high marks for deductive reasoning. It doesn’t matter, though. Within the week I intend to secure the ser­vices of a Kalsaari Artificer, who will cut this thing off my hand with great dispatch.”

  Myreon couldn’t help but laugh. “An Artificer? Ha! Those recluses only work with Kalsaari nobility, and reluctantly at that. Even if you could find one around here, what possible reason would they have to help you? You have nothing to offer them in return.”

  Reldamar raised an eyebrow. “I don’t?”

  The realization hit Myreon suddenly, and her jaw dropped. The Kalsaaris would pay almost anything to get their hands on a staff-­bearing mage, and particularly a Mage Defender. They would pick her brain apart like a spirit clock if it meant unlocking one of the Arcanostrum’s secrets. In her work in Illin, Myreon had seen what became of magi who were taken by the Kalsaaris—­they were like vegetables, their minds scooped out like porridge by Kalsaari sorcery. “You . . . you wouldn’t.”

  It was Reldamar’s turn to laugh. “I told you I had a use for you.”

  Myreon recovered herself and fixed the smuggler with a baleful glare. She worked her stiff, raw fingers back and forth beneath the table. My fate lies in my fingers. My fate lies in my fingers. . .

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  LOOSE LIPS

  Artus was drunk, and he was yelling. “Tyvian Reldamar is a son of a bitch!”

  Two bearded men in the dingy bar looked up from their game of t’suul. “Keep it down, boy!” one of them snapped. Artus returned the men’s glares until they turned back to their tiles.

  Artus had no real idea what part of Freegate he was in—­it was five blocks below Tyvian’s Top Street address, somewhere off the aptly named Low Street in the midst of the Free City’s smog layer. It was not a good neighborhood, certainly, but it did look like a cheap one. The bar he was in had no name he could recall—­just a sign shaped like an ale-­tankard. No one had welcomed him when he entered, and he waited almost an hour before the barkeep—­a one-­eyed, rail-­thin Ihynishman—­asked if he wanted ale or food or both. Artus insisted on ale and ale alone. He was on his third tankard. It was tasteless and watered down, but it did its job.

  This was not the first time he had been drunk. On his tenth birthday, during Marik’s going-­away party, Balter and Handen had dared him to drink a cup of whiskey. He’d downed it all at once, just to spite them and show them he wasn’t afraid. They had to have one, too, then—­Balter was fourteen and Handen was fifteen, and none of them were supposed to drink. Ma had found them stripped and wrestling in the barn. They were all too dizzy to stand up. He remembered laughing a lot then. Even Ma, in the midst her yelling, couldn’t keep in a chuckle.

  This kind of drunk was a very different experience. This was the kind of drunk Artus had seen a lot of in the year since he’d left home—­the kind he saw in the alleys and
run-­down bars of Ayventry, Galaspin, and now Freegate. Men who sat hunched over their bottles, staring into the distance, gulping down liquor with faces fixed with a rictus grin. “I am happy,” the grin said. “No really, I am happy. Honest.”

  Artus found himself assuring those around him of a similar thing. He was celebrating, he said. He was celebrating a big job. A lot of money.

  He was celebrating being abandoned.

  “Kroth take him, anyway.” Artus spat on the table. “Tyvian Reldamar is a son of a bitch.” He drank sloppily from his tankard.

  At home, a boy of not-­quite-­fourteen in a tavern drinking through his sorrows would have garnered some attention. Here, nobody cared so long as he kept it down. The bearded men were involved in their t’suul game, laying silver down on their tiles with greasy fingers. The barkeep fondled the barmaid openly by the till. Three others sat in a circle around an uneven table in the back, empty vials of ink discarded by their feet, their faces slack and eyes dilated as the alchemical drug ravaged their senses. These three were dressed in rags, their bodies gaunt and spotted with sores. They hadn’t moved since Artus had entered. “Hey!” he yelled at them. “Are any of you dead?”

  The t’suul players glared at him again. “Shut up, boy!”

  “Kroth take you, too!” Artus retorted. The men didn’t flinch at the profanity and returned to their game.

  “So,” he muttered, “alone again. Always alone for Artus. S’like poetry.” Artus snorted at this, and forced a laugh. “I’m clever. Clever . . . er than he thought anyway.”

  He should be used to it, he knew. His father had gone away and died. Conrad had gone away and died. Marik had gone away and died. Balter and Handen had gone away. Ma had sent him over the mountains. Reldamar didn’t need him anymore. It was all the same. Everybody had their reasons, but it was all the same. He was the kid, the runt, the youngest, the boy who didn’t know anything. Why keep him around? What’s the point?

  Artus fished Eddereon’s letter out of his jacket and squinted at the blocky script there, as though staring harder might make sense of the letters. Eddereon had pulled him from the freezing river, had fed and clothed him, had treated him with respect and kindness. Artus knew immediately he was a man to be admired and followed—­a lot like Conrad or Marik. Artus felt drawn to him; he felt like Eddereon knew exactly what he was going through, where he had been. He had sworn to serve Eddereon, to be his servant or page or whatever the great man had thought necessary, and then Eddereon had just vanished into thin air and left this letter. He couldn’t even read, but he knew what it said.

  “Dear kid,” Artus said, affecting a deep voice in imitation of Eddereon. He moved his eyes from side to side, like folks who read did. “I think you’re a good kid, but I got things to do. Adult stuff that’s too important for a . . . for a kid. ’Bye! Regards, Eddereon.”

  One of the t’suul players slammed a fist on the table, rattling the tiles. “Dammit, boy! I’m trying to concentrate!”

  Artus stuck out his tongue.

  The man stood, drawing a dagger from a belt sheath. “Kroth! I’ll cut that tongue off, you miserable brat!”

  Artus started to wonder where his own blade was when he was grabbed by the collar by the bartender. “Hey!” The barkeep thrust a bony finger at the angry t’suul player. “No blood in the bar! You want to cut the whelp, do it in the gutter.”

  “You can’t thrown me ow . . . out,” Artus slurred as the bartender, showing remarkable strength for a man of such slight stature, dragged him to the door and then kicked him into the street. Artus tripped and wound up on the cobblestones, his head spinning. He shouted in what he thought was the general direction of the bar, “I’m a payment custo . . . custo-­momer. You can’t do this t’me, dammit.”

  The door to the bar slammed closed. The t’suul player never appeared—­apparently the game continued to require his utmost attention. After a minute or two Artus tried to stand up, but the world spun a bit too much and he laid back down on the cobbles. Night had fallen. Intermittent feylamps flickered from lampposts here and there, but for every working one there were three that had been vandalized or simply stolen. The yellow-­orange flames of those that remained reacted with the smoky air to create great circular nimbuses of gloomy light that made the unkempt buildings along the street look gaunt and skeletal, their windows as dark as empty eye sockets. It was damp and cold, and no one was out.

  Artus weighed sleeping there against the odds of being trampled by a horse. He didn’t remember seeing too many horses in Freegate on the way in—­the vertical nature of the place made it awkward for horsemen—­but that didn’t mean there weren’t any horsemen at all. He decided on a compromise. “Hey!” He shouted upward. “Nobody trample me, ’kay? I’m sleepin’ here!”

  Somewhere, from a dark distant window, someone yelled, “Shut up!”

  Artus found this hilarious, and laughed to himself for a while. He rolled onto all fours and began to see about standing up without assistance when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a group of eight legs stop in front of him. Two sets of legs wore heavy leather boots, while a third was barefoot. The fourth was wearing soft, thigh-­high riding boots with silver lacing, unkempt but expensive. The owner of these boots was the first to speak. His voice was sharp and softly accented; Artus had heard it somewhere before. “Now what have we here, Ketch?”

  “Drunk boy, sir,” one of the heavy-­booted men said.

  Artus rolled himself into a sitting position. He looked up at a pair of broad-­shouldered, hard-­faced thugs wearing black cloaks, steel helmets, and chain mail. A frail, shivering man in a dressing gown with a sack over his head was in the process of being frog-­marched between the two thugs. The fourth man, the one who had first spoken, was wearing a thick woolen cape fastened by a silver chain at his throat, had a rapier and a dagger at his hip, and had the same blade-­thin physique, tousled black hair, and narrow, unshaven features that Artus remembered from their first meeting. “Hey,” he snorted. “You’re Zazlar Hendrieux.”

  “I’m sorry, lad, but have we met?” Hendrieux smiled, but only with his mouth. He looked like a predator showing its teeth.

  Artus frowned. Now why wouldn’t he remember? The details were a little fuzzy in his head then, but something inside told him to play dumb. “Oh . . . sorry. Must be wrong, then.”

  Hendrieux sniffed the air over Artus’s head. “Oh dear me. What’s a young lad like you doing drinking alone in a place like this anyway?” He nodded toward the bar.

  “Sir?” Ketch grunted, nodding his head toward the shivering man held between him and the other thug.

  Hendrieux held up a finger. “Just a moment, Ketch.”

  “He’s just some orphan,” the other one said, and added, “So what?”

  “He’s just some orphan who knows me. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?” Hendrieux sneered at his companions.

  “I’m not an orphan!” Artus stood up on a pair of wobbling legs. “I’ve got a family and lots of important friends!”

  Hendrieux snickered at that. “Really? Such as?”

  “Well . . .” Artus cast about for a moment—­who would Hendrieux think of as important? Of course! “Tyvian Reldamar is my friend!”

  Hendrieux laughed louder; his companions joined in. “Tyvian Reldamar didn’t associate with dirty street orphans even when he was alive. Nice try, though.”

  Artus snorted. “Reldamar isn’t dead.”

  “I’m surprised you haven’t heard.” Hendrieux chuckled. “Killed by Defenders on the Galaspin spirit engine. Terrible disaster, from what I understand. Shame really—­had nothing but respect for the chap.”

  The words came rushing out of Artus’s mouth before he could stop them. “No, he escaped and now he’s in Freegate and he’s going to kill you for double-­crossing him, you son of a bitch.”

  The mirth and the color drained f
rom Hendrieux’s face at the same time. “You shouldn’t throw around wild stories like that, boy. Reldamar’s dead.”

  “Alive. And he’s come here. And he’s got a mirror-­man . . . err, woman . . . prisoner. And he’s killed Hacklar Jaevis. And he’s—­”

  Hendrieux seized Artus by the collar and pushed him back on the ground “Well . . .” he hissed. “Haven’t you been helpful.” He turned to the two thugs. “Ketch, this boy is a problem. Kill him.”

  “What, ’ere?” Ketch looked up and down the street.

  Hendrieux grasped the arm of the shivering man, who by this point was shaking both from cold and, probably, from terror. “In the alley if you prefer. Make it quick and meet up with us later.”

  “Yessir.”

  Artus tried to scramble to his feet, but he slipped and fell flat on his back again. Hendrieux grinned over him. “Very nice meeting you.”

  Ketch grabbed Artus by the feet and dragged him behind the bar as easily as if Artus had been in a wheelbarrow. Artus tried to draw his knife but couldn’t remember where it was. He began to call for help, but Ketch kicked him in the stomach and his cry was replaced with a wheezing “Oooooo.”

  Artus wriggled and rolled, but the big man easily pinned him in place with a knee and held a long, thin knife up to the lamplight. “ ’Ere now, bobbin’. Don’t wiggle so much, eh?”

  Those would be the last words the man ever uttered.

  Hool leapt upon his back from a rooftop, crushing him to the ground underneath her substantial weight. Even as Ketch was screaming in surprise, her powerful arms had wrapped around his head and yanked back. His spine broke with a visceral pop; the sound made Artus snap back to almost total sobriety.

  Hool dragged Artus to his feet. “You smell like drunks.”

  Artus couldn’t take his eyes off the burly Ketch, folded in half like a picnic chair. “Sweet Hann’s mercy, Hool . . . you . . . you just . . .”

  “Why was this man going to kill you?” Hool asked, sniffing Ketch’s body as she rifled through his pockets.