Test of Metal p-4

by Mathew Stover

  I held up my meat arm and wriggled its fingers. ‘My erstwhile right arm,’ I corrected myself. The Seekers said they could create etherium. They had supposedly uncovered the secret during intensive study of the legacy of this imaginary Mad Sphinx of theirs, something to do with a mythological mineral called sangrite that can be infused with?ther by using another mythological substance called carmot. Presto change-o, new etherium. If they’d been telling the truth, it would have revolutionized life on Esper.”

  “If,” Bolas said, getting those bricks scraping again. “Go on.”

  “Only the Fellowship-the Fellows of the Arcane Council, the most advanced and holy adepts of the entire Order-were allowed to read and care for the book they called the Codex Etherium, where they had recorded everything they’d learned about Crucius, about his life and wisdom, his disappearance, his techniques of working etherium… and the secrets of carmot and sangrite. With the ancient sphinxian wisdom in the Codex, the Fellowship-alone among all the mages of Esper-could create etherium. So I joined them. I studied with them, trained with them, took their orders-I even mucked out their damned toilets-for three years. Because I believed. I did. I thought we were going to transform Esper into paradise. I even told-”

  I bit down hard enough to draw fresh blood from my injured cheek. There was no reason to tell Bolas about my last visit to my father’s hovel in Tidehollow-about how I had been practically babbling with enthusiasm, and what my father had said…

  Bolas didn’t need to know.

  “So?” the dragon said, his upper lip peeling back. “Tell me about this paradise, Tezzie.”

  I shrugged with a great deal more nonchalance than I felt. “There’s nothing to tell. It was all lies. As you know. Every scrap and every shred. Lies.”

  The curve of his upper lip twisted toward a definite sneer. “Are you sure?”

  “I was there, Bolas. I broke into the Sanctum. I read the Codex-no. I opened the Codex. There was nothing to read. Nothing. The whole rectum-blistering book was blank.”

  Bolas unwrapped his tail from his neck and stood, folding his wings and looking so happy that I knew whatever came next would be bad.

  “So, Tezzie, nice story,” he said. “Entertaining, and enlightening! You deserve a special surprise, and here it is-the task you will perform for me. You’re going to find Crucius.”

  “Oh, is that all?” I could not restrain a snort. “Brilliant. Is that your genius punch line? Where should I start looking? Up your ass?”

  He laughed. “That’s what I like best about you, Tezzie. Repartee, gold-plated vocabulary, culture and education and refinement… Scratch that cultured Esper mage with one fingernail, and all you find underneath is just another filthy scrapper’s spawnling… What did they call you? Cave brats? You can take the boy out of Tidehollow, but…”

  “Who I am-what I was-has never been a secret. I have nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing.”

  “But you are anyway.” Bolas had his too-many-teeth smile going again. “Now: Crucius.”

  “Haven’t you been paying attention? He’s not real-that whole Mad Sphinx business is just more of the Seekers’ lies.”

  “How sure are you?”

  “As sure as I-” The dragon’s hideously smug grin stopped me in mid-reply. “I don’t… I mean, what are you saying?”

  “There. See? That’s the punch line.”

  I could only stare in dumb incomprehension.

  “You don’t get it? Joke’s on you, cave brat. Crucius is real. He is a sphinx, and he did create etherium. He’s a Planeswalker, just like us. Come on, Tezzie-did you really think everything the Seekers taught was a lie?”

  “I…” I couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say. “I suppose I did.”

  “Now, that’s comedy-but wait, there’s more!” The dragon shrugged open his wings and spread them as if to say, Look around, dumbass. “Where do you think we are?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This.” He reached over, and with a casual yank he broke loose a chunk of the rose-glowing crystal bigger than my two doubled fists. He tossed it to me.

  The chunk of crystal was heavy, far denser than it looked… and in its depths, I could see little flaws, like tiny cracks spidering through the rock… and it was from these flaws that the glow came…

  A sort of existential horror began to squeeze my throat. “I don’t understand…” I looked up at Bolas. “I don’t… What is this stuff?”

  “Blood.”

  I blinked. “Blood?”

  “Petrified dragon blood,” Bolas said with a sort of savage satisfaction, as if he really had spent fifteen years putting together a prank just for me, and he was enjoying the payoff more than he’d ever dared hope. “This particular blood belonged to… Well, you don’t need to know, do you? There was a serious dragon-war thing going on here some few years back, as you can probably guess.”

  “Jund,” I said. “We’re on Jund…”

  “These days, we say we’re in Jund.”

  “What?”

  “You’ll find out. The important thing, here, is that dragon blood spilled in battle is different from what you’d get if, oh, you were somehow foolish enough to actually cut me, for example. It’s a stress hormone thing, as well as all manner of esoteric metabolites left over from powering our various magical abilities. And here in Jund-in the high mountains, in fact, probably something relating to some unique quality of mana here-dragon blood leaves this interesting residue. That you are holding in your hand. Right now.”

  I could feel some of what made this crystal interesting-mana leaked from it, giving it the warmth and the light, but it was also absorbing mana from some unknown source… It was gaining power, not losing it…

  I couldn’t raise my voice above a whisper. “What in the hells is it?”

  “You’re the Giant Brain, aren’t you? So proud of your self-education. So tell me: what’s the etymology of the word sangrite?”

  “It’s vedalken for bloodstone,” I said reflexively… Then, when I heard the words that had come from my lips, I found I could no longer breathe.

  “You must be joking…” I managed.

  “Oh, I certainly am. But I’m not lying. It’s all true. Those lies that you murdered all these people over? All true. Every single one. That’s what makes it funny.”

  I had to sit down. “All… true…?”

  “Except for the part about them actually having the stuff. Other than that…? Yes. All true. Every rectum-blistering word. How’s that for a prank?”

  I could only stare.

  Nicol Bolas, twenty-five-thousand-year-old dragon, Planeswalker, sometime god, destroyer of worlds, winked at me like a demented carnival barker. “How do you like me now?”

  Before I could answer, he produced a globe of milky glass and cast it at my feet. It exploded with a binding flash… and when I could see again, I was in Tidehollow.

  TEZZERET

  EXCHANGING UNPLEASANTRIES

  I knew it was Tidehollow. I cannot mistake my birthplace for anywhere else in the Multiverse; the cavern slums below Vectis have a unique odor, compounded of mildew, rotten fish, feces, poverty, and despair. The air feels as if it’s been breathed already-as if the distinctive odor is actually the product of someone’s breath.

  Everyone’s breath.

  I stood exactly as I had in the crystal cave: two flesh arms, one large chunk of sangrite, and no clothing at all.

  And it was raining.

  There was no wind-there almost never was-and the permanent drizzle of condensate that is Tidehollow’s rain felt icy and tasted of mold. Thank Bolas for small favors; he’d put me in deep shadow on one of the twisty beast paths that serve for streets down here. He could just as easily have dropped me in the Grand Bazaar at noon. Or the Hegemon’s bedchamber. I took my reasonably surreptitious arrival as a sign that Bolas, so far, actually wanted me to pursue his preposterous mission.

  Probably.

  Dragons as a species tend t
o be of uncertain temper, and Bolas in particular is uniquely opaque. Guessing his intention in any given sphere is a hazardous undertaking. Even his practical jokes can blossom into deadly serious schemes, and what appear to be substantive projects can, as I had just learned, turn out to be elaborate pranks.

  Though, I reminded myself, the fact that Bolas claimed the Seekers of Carmot had been a prank didn’t mean anything. With Bolas, nothing is ever wholly one thing or another.

  He was playing some deeper game. He always plays some deeper game.

  I suppose I am not entirely different. It struck me then, for example, that I should pay a visit to the Seekers, as I was in town anyway-which could be read as a flaw of sentiment, and perhaps it was. But that’s not all it was.

  First: clothing.

  It should have been a small matter to summon mana sufficient for an illusion of clothing. In previous days, when I’d had my arm, I routinely wore illusory clothing of such sophistication that it was, for all intents and purposes, real. It was solid to the touch and interacted normally with sun, wind, and weather. I could carry small items in my pockets, hang pouches from my belt, and I could fine-tune it to provide warmth in cold climates, keep me cool in warm climes, or even function as armor against physical attack.

  But that had been when I’d had my arm.

  Now to gather the mana alone was time-consuming and difficult, despite my proximity to the deep mana wells of the Sea of Unknowing. Binding myself to them to replenish my reserves actually fatigued me instead of reviving me. Clearly, my newly reduced capacity would take some getting used to. The chill drizzle intensified, as it often did through the evening, and I was already shivering.

  Not far away, however, a line of seastone topped with sharp slate served someone as a fence… and it seemed this someone had been overly optimistic about the weather here, as several large tunics and one pair of breeches had been hung over the fence to dry.

  The actual caverns of Tidehollow-about three-quarters of the slum’s total extent-afford considerable protection from the weather on the Sea of Unknowing, but in exchange one must live in a state of perpetual gloom and permanent damp. The exhalations of each cavern’s inhabitants inevitably condense on the stone, forming much of the drizzle that falls through every night. The owner of these articles had either forgotten them, or simply did not care enough to take them in from the rain. In either case, I had more need of them than did their owner.

  But I could not make my hand close upon them.

  I stood at that fence for an indeterminable interval; it seemed a very long time. I needed clothing, and here this was, laid out before me like an offering to honor my homecoming. There was not one reason in the Multiverse I should stand naked in the rain while in front of me lay perfectly appropriate clothing that had been forgotten or discarded here. Or abandoned. One might argue that I’d be doing these people a favor by helping them dispose of what they clearly considered to be trash.

  It wasn’t as though I haven’t done worse. I’ve done much, much worse. Without hesitation. Many times. In my roster of criminal activity, this oh-so-petty theft would not merit even a glancing reference.

  But still I could not make myself do it.

  There at the improvised fence in the dark Tidehollow drizzle, I kept hearing my father’s voice. “They don’ has to want for them to take. Take is what they do. Take is their whole life.”

  To take these pitifully ragged, nearly valueless scraps of clothing would somehow break a vow I didn’t remember swearing-a vow I’d made with all my heart. An oath sworn to my seven-year-old self.

  Yes: I am sentimental, and sentiment is a flaw, and despite knowing full well how irrational it was, I found myself up against a wall of unexpected principle. I have never hesitated to steal from the wealthy, from the powerful, from beings who might crush me with a thought. Even my thefts from my own father happened only while he had absolute power over my life and my death. To pit my skill and wit against the greats of the worlds, with my life as the stake, is what gives my existence meaning.

  To take from people who already have nothing is too vile, even for me.

  I am not known for honesty, nor for fidelity. I don’t think I’ve ever made a promise I haven’t broken. Except, apparently, this one.

  It seems that filthy little scrapper’s brat is the only person I’ve ever met whom I am unwilling to betray.

  I may very well have stood there all night but for a woman’s voice, a harsh whisper in the darkness, that came from the dimly lamp-lit window of the stone hovel on the other side of the fence. “Hsst! Chammie! Theyz sumpin over th’ fence! Chammie, look!”

  An infant began to bawl, and a large shadow filled the tiny window. “Hoy!” The shout was a man’s, hoarse and sudden and Tidehollow swampy. “Git out from there, sluice sucker! Garn! Fore I git out to shoo yer!”

  For an instant I lingered, snared by memory. There had been a boy named Chammie among my gang of cave brats… Small, ginger hair, a cast in one eye, he’d fight anyone, anytime, any odds…

  The shadow vanished from the window and reappeared rounding from the far side of the hovel, a pickaxe held high in both hands. “Garn! Git, you! Less yer after a taste a this!”

  I faded back into the shadows, away from the fence. “Your clothes,” I said softly, astonishing myself. “Your clothes are getting wet.”

  The shadow stopped, suddenly uncertain. “I come ‘crost th’ wall, I come back with yer blood on my axe,” he said, trying for a gruff warning but sounding as though he spoke more to bolster his own nerve than to shake mine.

  And had he crossed that wall…

  He would have found himself facing a creature beyond his darkest imagining. All his strength, his raw courage that brought him out into the dark to put himself and his weapon between his family and the unknowable dangers of night in Tidehollow, all his fierceness, all his love, all his skill… In the end, these would only be the why of his death.

  And why is nothing at all.

  “You’ll never see me again,” I said. “Take in your clothes.”

  “Garn,” he said, gathering the tunics and the pants with one hand while the other still held the pick high, and his eye never wavered from my dark silhouette. “Git yerself gone.”

  Having mana sufficient for a minor seeming, I wrapped shadows about myself and watched. I found myself, inexplicably, wanting desperately to talk to him-to ask if he’d been the Chammie I had known, to ask if he remembered the boy he and his friends had called Tezzeret… but Chammie is a name not uncommon in Tidehollow. Could this be the man who’d grown from the boy I’d known? The odds were ridiculously slim. I couldn’t even see if he had the ginger hair.

  And if it was he, and if he did remember me… what then?

  Would I tell him of my life, of what it’s like to be an artificer and a mage? A confidence trickster, a racketeer, and a slayer of bandits? Should I tell him of Nicol Bolas and how I had stolen the Infinite Consortium from the most powerful being in creation? Would I boast of walking worlds he could not imagine? And if I did, would he even understand, let alone believe me?

  Would I want him to?

  In the end, I had been only a shape in the darkness. He cast a last glance toward where he’d seen me fade away, then shook his head and went into his hovel with his clothing, there to be with his woman and their child.

  I gathered my cloak of shadows around myself and went my way alone.

  As I always have.

  Considering how much effort was required merely to drape myself in shadow, I decided I shouldn’t depend on magic for dress and shelter. Fortunately, mana is only one variety of power; there are others, one of which I could put my hands on with only a little effort.

  I keep stashes of local currency or items of value on every plane I’ve ever walked; every single city in which the Infinite Consortium does business has funds on deposit that only I can retrieve. These were placed against the eventuality that someone-say, for example, Jace Beleren-shou
ld pull the same trick as I had, and take the Infinite Consortium from me as I had taken it from Bolas. Admittedly, I had failed to credit Beleren with either the power or the ruthlessness to kill me outright. Short of that, there was always a chance I might be stranded somewhere, in the sort of trouble that can only be cured with cash.

  Money is a fungible resource. Virtually the only thing of value that can’t be purchased is mana itself… though with funds sufficient to interest particular sorts of mages and sorcerers, even mana can be bought. Since I had never anticipated returning to Tidehollow itself, my nearest stash was a considerable distance upslope, built into the rear wall of a small brewery in the mazy backways of Lower Vectis-and it was considerably more valuable than mere money.

  I moved though the slums like a brinewraith, slipping from shadow to shadow, working my tortuous way up out of the caverns, avoiding crowds, brightly lit lanes, and heavily trafficked streets. At one point I was less than a fifteen-minute walk from my old neighborhood, where for all I knew my father might still live. I did not succumb to a passing urge to drop in.

  I’m not that sentimental.

  The brewery stood two stories taller than the surrounding buildings, which were primarily warehouses and handcraft workshops. At this hour only scattered windows showed lamplight, but here, above the caverns, the night was clear and the moon provided light enough for me to find my way. A wall of stone twice my height and topped with razorglass closed off the brewery’s midden, and theoretically prevented rats and other local vermin from feasting upon the rotting remnants of the malted grain and dead yeast dumped here to drain.

  The smell alone was a powerful deterrent to potential interlopers. Also, being who I am, the stash was concealed not only from mortal eyes, but from every magical sense I could replicate. The most powerful rhabdomant on Esper might lean against this wall for however long he might fancy and never get the faintest glimmer of what lay inside.