Test of Metal p-4

by Mathew Stover

  Bolas could no longer contain his disbelief. “That’s impossible-you can’t just take a power away from me!”

  “Yes. The only person who can do that to you is, well… you.”

  “What?”

  “Jace Beleren wasn’t the only one with a trap in his mind,” Tezzeret said. “This one was a little subtler. I’ve given your clockworking powers into the care of a subpersonality of yours. I based my design on your work. This subpersonality actually understands how dangerous clockworking is, and so he’ll make sure you never do it again. I have given you something more valuable than all the etherium that has ever existed.”

  He smiled, and now Bolas did see a trace of that malice that had been formerly absent. Tezzeret said, “I’ve given you a friend.”

  “What?” Bolas thought for a moment that his eyes might bulge right out of his skull. “You didn’t-you couldn’t possibly-”

  “Doc,” said Tezzeret, “say hello.”

  And Nicol Bolas heard a thinly wiseass human voice buzzing in his left ear. “Hiya! Hey, it’s nice in here! Damn, Nicky, we shoulda got together years ago!”

  Tezzeret looked unconscionably pleased with himself.

  For one horrible second, Bolas was afraid that for the first time in twenty-five millennia, he might actually burst into tears.

  “Aww, come on, Nicky. It won’t be that bad. Well, not that bad. Okay, it’ll be pretty bad. But look on the bright side: as long as you don’t try to pull your clockworking crap, I won’t have any reason to talk to you.”

  Bolas could understand already how that would become a substantial inducement. “What have you done?” He was almost moaning. “How have you-you could not possibly-”

  “I know you haven’t spent much time in Esper, and certainly not in the slums,” the artificer said casually, “and so there is no reason you would know our word for a small, improvised weapon, kept concealed on one’s body until its stroke can kill.”

  Incomprehension piled upon humiliation on top of dread, Bolas could only stare.

  The artificer leaned toward him and lowered his voice as though imparting a secret. “In Tidehollow,” he said, “we call it a tezzeret.”

  Sometime later, after giving him an opportunity to recover his composure, Tezzeret approached the dragon in a gentle, almost companionable way. “I know you’re angry. Embarrassed. Even humiliated. Please understand that it is not my intention to make you feel that way. Please believe that all this has not been arranged to do you any harm at all.”

  “Oh, and I would believe this why?”

  “If it had been my goal to humiliate you,” Tezzeret said, “we would have had this conversation in front of an audience.”

  And before Nicol Bolas’s astonished eyes, Tezzeret the Seeker reached outside the universe, and when his hand returned, it held the wrist of Jace Beleren.

  “That’s impossible!”

  “Not here.”

  “But how-?”

  “I can think of no reason why I should tell you.”

  “His mind’s dead,” Bolas said. “As dead as yours used to be.”

  “Yes.” Tezzeret smiled. “I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept of poetic justice.”

  “That spell, during the fight-it was you!”

  “Of course it was me. He might have spoiled my surprise.” The artificer shrugged. “A properly partitioned consciousness can, as you know all too well, do several things at once.”

  “But killing him that way, all at once, painlessly-” Bolas cocked his head, squinting sidelong. “Uncharacteristically merciful.”

  “My friend Kemuel would say that mercy is the greatest of the virtues.”

  “Yeah? And what do you say?”

  Tezzeret’s smile spread, but his eyes went cold and hard as chips of obsidian. “Virtue,” he said, “is for good guys. You and I have other priorities.”

  “Ah. He’s not actually dead.”

  A blue haze seemed to leak from the pores of Tezzeret’s right arm. He opened his hand toward Beleren, and the haze became a crackling gap spark that spit itself into the mind ripper’s face. “Not anymore.”

  Bolas arched an eyebrow. “He doesn’t seem too lively.”

  “He’s still suspended. I will leave him like that while I retrieve Baltrice and Liliana Vess. I have a bit of business with them that must be taken care of, and it might interest you to watch, if you wouldn’t mind. I can ensure that they will not be aware of your presence. Please?”

  “You’re asking me? You’re asking for permission to preserve whatever is left of my dignity?”

  “Yes,” Tezzeret said. “It’s only polite.”

  Nicol Bolas sat on the etherium beach and watched Tezzeret revive the other three planewalkers. With a curiously private smile, he had kneeled beside each of them, placed his hand on each of their heads, and murmured, “Awaken. You are free. Arise and walk.”

  And they did.

  Bolas couldn’t even tell how Tezzeret had done it.

  There was a predictable amount of commotion-especially between Baltrice and Vess, where Beleren had to get between them to prevent bloodshed-but Tezzeret got them settled down in an impressively swift fashion. He answered their most pressing question-“Where’s that damned dragon?”-in a way that Bolas found obscurely tickling.

  “It is always safest to assume,” Tezzeret told them gravely, his deadpan unbreakable, “that Nicol Bolas is closer than you think.”

  “And what in the hells is up with you?” Beleren demanded. “What is this place? How did you get us away from Bolas? What’s going on?”

  Tezzeret favored him with the same smile Bolas had found so infuriating. Beleren didn’t seem to like it any better. “Each of you has been of exceptional assistance to me in recent days. I hope to thank you, and to give each of you a gift. This place is… me. Or I am it. Or I will be, eventually. I did not take you from Bolas. He cast all three of you into the Blind Eternities. I have retrieved you; that’s all. You are, I suppose, salvage. What’s going on is our taking leave of one another. Is that clear enough?”

  “Not even close,” Jace said, starting toward him, only to be stopped by Baltrice’s hand on his shoulder.

  “Boss. Don’t do it.”

  “I’m just saying hello to an old friend,” he growled through his teeth.

  “Well, don’t,” she said. “He’s not who you think he is.”

  “Looks familiar enough to me.” Beleren shook off her hand and raised his arms to begin a casting, and Baltrice gave his shoulder a hard shove that sent him stumbling sideways into the plinth.

  “I’m telling you,” she said. “He’s not who you think he is. He can do things you can’t even imagine.”

  Nicol Bolas reflected that he wouldn’t have minded getting that particular warning himself.

  “Are we done?” Tezzeret said evenly. “This is a bad time to fight among ourselves. There is still a very angry dragon nearby, who might wish to vent that anger on whatever people he can catch. You don’t want to be those people.”

  He looked from one to another until they each subsided.

  “Liliana Vess,” he said, stepping to her side and taking her hand. “Your help was inadvertent, but valuable nonetheless. The gift I have for you is freedom.”

  She frowned at him. “Freedom?”

  “Many of you-alternate Liliana Vesses from parallel time lines-had bound themselves to Bolas’s service by blood pact. Are you one of them?”

  “Well…” She flushed and looked ashamed of herself, providing what appeared to be answer enough.

  “Listen to me now, Liliana Vess,” he said, placing his hand on her head, “there are also many of you who have never bound yourselves wholly to the dragon. Close your eyes.”

  “I don’t care what you think you can do, but there’s no breaking that compact. I’ve tried. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve tried.”

  “Please. Indulge me.”

  She sighed and closed her eyes.

  �
��You, Liliana Vess, are one of the unbound. In your life, you have learned too well the perils of contracts.”

  “Of course I am,” she said, shaking Tezzeret’s hand off her head. “What? That’s it? You tell me something I already know? Thanks for nothing. Literally.”

  “And you are welcome for something. Also literally.”

  “You think Bolas needs a signed contract to keep his hold on me?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “I’m out of this place,” she said. “Jace, it’s been real. Baltrice, kiss my ass.”

  She stalked off along the beach, gathering the power to shift out.

  Tezzeret turned to the pyromancer. “Baltrice.”

  She waved him off. “No presents. All I want is for you to take your doohickey out of Jace’s head.”

  “That’s already done.”

  “It is?”

  Jace said, “It is?”

  “Before you woke up.”

  Bolas noted that Tezzeret did not bother to specify which time.

  Baltrice spread her hands. “That’s all I need.”

  “It’s all you want,” Tezzeret said. “Not the same thing.”

  “Seriously. Looks like things are working out okay for you, and I’m glad for that. Really. Even though you served me up to Nicol Bolas like a snack tray; I figure there’s no way you could have known.”

  “And I thank you for that generous estimation.” Tezzeret stepped around her and reached for something on the plinth-a necklace. Its chain was pure etherium and its pendant a carefully shaped red gemstone that glowed with a light of its own.

  Sangrite, Bolas realized. Why would the artificer give sangrite to his pet pyromancer?

  “More jewelry?” she said with a lopsided smile. “Come on, Tezzeret-people are starting to talk.”

  “Baltrice, do you remember the conversation we had in the Glass Dunes, when I was working on my armor? About who I’ve become, and who you’ve become, and why?”

  “Not really. Something’s screwy with my memory about all that stuff. Probably something to do with Renn. Hey, did you ever settle that bastard?”

  “Not personally.” Tezzeret wasn’t smiling anymore. “This necklace is, like the locator ring and the navigator, more about what it does than what it is, and again it’s a simple device. Slip it on over your head, and you become invulnerable to all forms of mental domination.”

  “Yeah?”

  Jace Beleren said, “What?”

  She hefted it appreciatively, then shrugged her thanks. “Nice. Much appreciated.”

  Jace said, an undertone of urgency in his voice, “Baltrice, don’t put it on.”

  “Why not?”

  Nicol Bolas had occasionally produced, in his alchemical research laboratories, temperatures extreme enough to liquefy helium. He had never seen anything remotely as cold as the look Tezzeret then turned upon Jace Beleren. “Yes, Jace. Tell her why not.”

  “It’s a trick,” Beleren said. He was starting to sweat. “Baltrice, you trust me, right?”

  “Sure, Jace.” She looked puzzled. “Of course.”

  “Do you want to tell her why?” Tezzeret said. “Or shall I?”

  “I don’t get it.” Baltrice seemed to be having difficulty processing what was happening, and her confusion was shading toward anger. “Why what? What are you two talking about?”

  “Baltrice, you have to believe me-!”

  Flames kindled in her hair. “Why what?” she barked.

  “Why you trust him,” Tezzeret replied, flat and cold as an etherium knife. “Put on the necklace, and you’ll find out.”

  “Jace…? Did you… do something to me?” She turned slowly, her eyes wide, and even though her voice was small and girlish, Beleren took a step back. “What did you do?”

  Bolas didn’t know what Beleren saw in her eyes. To the dragon, it looked like death by hellfire.

  “Baltrice, come on! You know me better than that-you can’t… don’t let him do this to you!” Beleren pleaded, lifting his hands as though to shield himself.

  “Cast that spell,” Tezzeret said, “and die where you stand.”

  Beleren froze.

  Shortly he must have decided Tezzeret wasn’t bluffing, because he let his hands fall. “Baltrice, please-”

  “Shut up! Shut your festering mouth!” She wheeled on Tezzeret. “What is this? Why are you doing this to us?”

  “Because I like you,” he said. “And I don’t like him.”

  “But… but…” She looked as if something was breaking inside her.

  “When he was my prisoner, he was tortured. For months. Tortured almost exclusively by you,” Tezzeret said. “Have you forgotten that? Do you think he has?”

  She looked stunned.

  “Yes: find out why you trust him,” Tezzeret said. “At the same time you’ll find out why he trusts you.”

  She clutched the necklace to her chest as though it were the only solid thing left in her world. “I don’t… I don’t want to know…”

  “My gift to you is truth,” Tezzeret said. “I never expected you to thank me for it.”

  Tears began to well in her eyes. “Jace…? What did you do to me?”

  Beleren lowered his head. “I saved your life.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about-”

  “Yes, it is. You just don’t remember.” Jace looked at her, and his eyes brimmed like hers. “Liliana-what she did to you-how she beat you…”

  He shook his head. “She hit you with ghosts, Baltrice. Shades. She infected you with the shades of every living thing that had ever died at Tezzeret’s tower. Even after we healed your body, the memory alone was killing you. Driving you insane.”

  “That’s not-” Her fists clenched, and flames sprouted across her shoulders. “You had no right-it’s not your call, Jace!”

  “It wasn’t,” he said softly. “It was yours. Baltrice, I didn’t want to. You begged me. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I… just couldn’t think of any other way to save your life.”

  “How can I believe you?”

  Tezzeret said, “There’s one way to find out.”

  “Baltrice, don’t-!” Jace said desperately. “The shades, the memories, all that stuff-it’s not gone, Baltrice. I buried it, that’s all. Putting on that necklace could kill you.”

  “Of course he would say that.”

  Baltrice looked wildly from one of them to the other, and then back again, baring her teeth like a cornered animal. “How can I… How am I supposed to know?”

  Tezzeret stood impassive as stone. “The truth is in your hand.”

  Tears spilled over and rolled down her cheeks, and with a strangled sob she turned and stumbled away in the direction opposite the necromancer’s.

  Jace watched her go. His face was empty. Without even loss. “You bastard…” he said hoarsely. Quietly. Without inflection. “You evil, murdering son of a bitch. She was happy. Happy. Do you even know what happy feels like?”

  “I suspect it very much resembles how I feel right now.”

  Beleren turned his empty face toward the artificer. “And what’s for me? Do you kill me now?”

  “I can be persuaded.”

  He looked down. “Then can I go?”

  “I strongly recommend that you do.”

  His head came up warily. Frowning, he began slowly to back away.

  “I don’t want to kill you, Jace. You’re too useful; I may need your talents someday. On the other hand, I don’t see any reason I should let a vicious little gutter monkey like you walk off without a scratch.”

  “What are you going to do?” Jace was slowly lowering himself toward a crouch. To Bolas, he looked like a herd animal trying to be inconspicuous to a predator.

  “Right now? I’m going to let you go.”

  “That’s it?”

  “For now. Your gift,” Tezzeret said, “is fear.”

  He stopped. “I don’t get it.”

  “You will. You never were a brave man. I
have decided to remove from you the burden of courage. Take Baltrice, for example. Once she tries on that necklace, I would not want to be you. Not to grind too fine an edge on it, I would rather not be on the same plane as you. Because I would not be at all surprised to learn that Baltrice had incinerated an entire planet just because you were on it.”

  “Yeah, okay, whatever. I can handle Baltrice. She’s a better person than you think.”

  “She was. Circumstances may change. And you have others to fear-me, for instance. Should I ever look in on you and decide you are insufficiently frightened, I will hurt you. I will hurt your family, if you have such. I will hurt your friends. Every person you have ever met will die screaming curses upon your name.”

  Beleren’s jaw clenched. “Then maybe I should take you out right now.”

  “Too late,” Tezzeret said. “You also have a little bit of a Nicol Bolas problem.”

  The mentalist went still.

  “Do you remember that device in your brain? I should hardly think you’ve forgotten already. Would you be interested in what happened to that device?”

  Beleren’s only reply was a guarded stare.

  “You gave it to Nicol Bolas. Against his will.”

  Jace went pale. “You-you couldn’t have! It’s not possible!”

  “That’s exactly what Bolas said. Another thing you two have in common.”

  “But-but I didn’t have anything to do with it!” Beleren said, going even whiter. “You did it to me-and you did it to him-”

  “And you helped.”

  “But I didn’t!” he whined. “There was nothing I could have done about it!”

  “Tragic, isn’t it?” He sighed. “I suspect Bolas is not interested in subtle distinctions.”

  “But-what about you? You’re the one who actually did it!”

  “I’m touched by your concern,” Tezzeret said. “You’ll be comforted to learn that Nicol Bolas and I have reached an understanding. A truce. You might even call it a partnership.”

  “That’s-that’s not-I mean, you and Bolas? You’re just making that up!”

  “You think so?” Tezzeret said, opening his hand in a gesture of invitation. “You can ask him.”