The Empire Stone

by Chris Bunch

  “Without children?” Peirol said.

  “Without children,” Klek nodded. “Although they try hard enough. The carpenters not infrequently have to repair their bed. And I have a suggestion for you about both wife and daughter: don’t go into rooms with them where there are corners.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  Klek grinned, refused to elaborate.

  Peirol considered his options. He didn’t think escape from the estate would be that good an idea, quite likely impossible. He hoped Niazbeck had been wrong, and there would be no war and hence no call for him to perform again as a cannoneer.

  But the year was dragging on, and the Empire Stone felt farther away than ever.

  The best thing to do was to change his circumstances. Peirol got permission from Klek to hunt about for a project of his own.

  “Although,” Klek said, “I must warn you not to be too artistic. The magnate has been known to feel irked when, shall we say, a smaller light threatens to eclipse his own.”

  “And what happens then?”

  “You’ve gone before Jirl twice,” Klek said. “I assume you’d find a third visit tiresome.”

  • • •

  In a storeroom where Niazbeck kept his breakages and faults, Peirol found something interesting: a large chunk of purple amethyst, a big man’s handspan in size. It had been partially cut, and one facet had a great crack down one side. He took it to Klek. The man winced.

  “I remember that well. Niazbeck once purchased a man who claimed to be a journeyman jeweler. I don’t even remember his name now. Anyway, he convinced the magnate of his talents and was purchased. Magnate Niazbeck had recently acquired that gem, and thought to have a goblet made, since he’d been told amethyst will drive off poison.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Peirol nodded. “Without a spell attached, that doesn’t sound likely to me.”

  “Nor me, but I was certainly not about to argue with the magnate. So with flash and fuffle, the journeyman began to cut the gem. You see what happened. Too great an angle, too much force, and the stone’s ruined.”

  “What happened to its cutter?”

  “He was gone within the hour,” Klek said. “I asked Guallauc what happened, if he’d been taken back to the slave market, and he just looked at me, eyes wide, as if I’d made him remember something monstrous. He begged me not to ask, not to mention the matter again.”

  “How very nice,” Peirol said. “Of course, no one else would try to salvage the disaster.”

  “Of course not,” Klek hissed. “Gems collect luck, some good, some bad. That one’s already brought one man’s doom, why should it collect another’s?”

  “I disbelieve that,” Peirol said. “Would there be any objection if I used it for something?”

  “Not at all. And if you ruin it, there’ll be no need for Magnate Niazbeck to know, though if he did know, I doubt if he would care.”

  “I have an open field,” Peirol said gaily, “and nothing but good fortune can attend.”

  “If you say so,” Klek said dubiously, and gave him his own bench and tools.

  Peirol clamped the flawed gem in his vise and sat staring at it for a day and half a night, making sketches, throwing them away, drawing others. No one came near him, which was perfectly acceptable to the dwarf when he was planning. At last he went to Klek and asked if Niazbeck had access to a wizard. “Not one of the first rank, even,” he said. “But I think I need some magic.” Thus he learned about Tejend, the quiet magician, and went to his lair, at the far end of the garden.

  The magician considered Peirol carefully. “Magnate Niazbeck told me he’d bought a dwarf, one with great talents, almost magical. What do you require of my magic, young man? I must warn you, I’m under oath to report anyone who visits me. Even for a simple love philtre,” he said. “The magnate is a most careful man.”

  “It’s not love nor villainy I’m interested in,” Peirol said, and explained what he wanted.

  Tejend nodded. “That’s quite an easy matter, and I know a simpler casting than the way you have suggested. But your gem must first be faceted, almost ready to be set, as I think you craftsman put it. Return with it then.”

  Peirol went to work. Klek winced when he realized the savagery Peirol was about to commit. He used a chisel to cut the stone in two along the crack. Then he cut the stone again parallel with the first cut, so he had a jagged slab a child’s palm wide, and almost a finger-width thick. Again and again he cut the stone, then cemented it in his lathe and turned it until he had girdled it into a disc. He measured, marked, and cut facets into the side of the disc. By now the stone was as big around as a man’s thumb and forefinger put together, about fifty varjas.

  “Why inward facets?” Klek asked. “That’ll just swallow the light.”

  “Maybe not,” Peirol said, working his neck back and forth to ease a cramp. “Maybe it’ll cast light out.”

  “What light?” Klek said. “No stone does more than absorb and reflect what’s around it.”

  “Not in Sennen,” Peirol said smugly.

  Finally the facets were finished and polished. Peirol cast a wrist torque from gold and spent three days cutting an intricate abstract pattern into the metal. He convinced Klek to give him twenty tiny diamonds, again from the waste bins. They’d been cut in an old-fashioned seventeen-facet cut, which allowed light from the top to escape through the sides instead of concentrating it, making them “sleepy” stones. Since they were too small to recut, they were almost valueless to a jeweler like Niazbeck, who offered only the most expensive baubles. Then he went to see the magician again.

  The estate path curved through flowers, and the world was bright with early summer, sunlight dappling the wavelets in the cove. Peirol took a moment to wish this place was his, without slaves, and with only, well, perhaps Kima to company him.

  “And while I’m at it,” he muttered, “why not the proper legs the gods should’ve given me as well?”

  He saw a flicker of red, rounded a curve, and there was Reni in front of him, carrying a basket of flowers. Not sure of the protocol a slave should show his master’s children, he jumped off the stones and ducked his head as he assumed a proper underling should.

  Reni laughed, a rather pleasant sound in this quiet place, and Peirol thought it might be all right to look up. She was not much taller than he was, quite perfectly proportioned for her size, and her hair was caught in a gold tie, then fell halfway down her back. She wore a linen gown with flowers embroidered on it, and sandals with straps that reached up her ankles.

  “You needn’t be so formal, dwarf.”

  “I’m still learning my place, mistress.”

  “I have a name, you know.”

  “Again, something I didn’t know if I was allowed to use, Reni.”

  “And you are?”

  “Peirol of the Moorlands,” he said, as formally as if they were equals.

  “My father’s told me of you, and I’ve been meaning to visit the shops, to see what you look like.” She giggled. “Although I have a fairly good idea of that already.”

  Peirol pretended innocence, guessing that the clash of metal he’d heard when she realized he’d seen her was a seaman’s spyglass being closed.

  “You don’t look like the warrior my father says you are.”

  “I’m not,” Peirol said. “What I did was only to keep me alive. My first love is jewels.”

  “And your second?” Reni looked slyly at him.

  Alarm bells clanged in Peirol’s mind.

  “That is a good question, mistress,” Peirol said. “And I admire your cleverness, for no one before’s ever asked me that, and so I have no ready answer.”

  “Think on it,” she said. “For I’ve heard … interesting things of dwarves.”

  Hoping he’d misunderstood, Peirol ducked his head. “If you’ll pardon me, now.”

  “Interesting things,” Reni said again, and licked her lips.

  Peirol wished he could have found a
better description of the way he left rather than “scuttling.”

  • • •

  “You’ve been gone over a Time,” the wizard Tejend said. “I thought you’d failed, or lost interest.” He examined the disc. “Now I see what you’re attempting. Very interesting indeed. So let us make preparation.”

  He drew a series of circles on the floor of his workroom and inscribed a different symbol in each. He put three small braziers equidistant from each other, then a fourth in the center.

  “We’ll burn young oak, for when it’s wet it can be easily shaped, as we want to shape your gem. Cypress for its powers, some pine knots since they burn brightly, and we’ll dust the fires with, oh, skullcap and vervain for movement, rosemary, wintergreen, and yellow dock.

  “Now, for an incantation. Umm. Ah, I have it. Now, put your stone in the center of that great brazier. Don’t worry, it won’t be harmed by the flames.”

  Tejend gestured, and the four braziers flamed to life. Smoke curled, wound around the room. He chanted:

  “Fire burn

  Fire bring a gift

  A gift of memory

  Warmth to the heart of this stone

  Alarat, Mentmana, Carral.”

  He repeated the names, if names they were, three times, then chanted for another minute in a language Peirol’s spell didn’t translate. He waved his hands, and the fires flickered three times in unison, went out.

  “Pluck the gem from the brazier. It won’t be hot.” Peirol obeyed. “Now, look into it. Is that the effect you wished?”

  “It’s wonderful, sir,” Peirol breathed. “Fine, very, very fine, better, much better than I thought it’d be.”

  “So you’re satisfied.”

  “I am and more,” Peirol said. “But … how do I pay you, or rather, since it’s intended for sale, how should you be recompensed?”

  Tejend smiled, a little sadly. “Forget about it. It let me exercise my mind. As I said before, I spend too much of my time doing nothing but love philtres.”

  Peirol didn’t think it would be seemly to ask for whom, thanked the wizard again, and left. Helpful and friendly though Tejend was, Peirol remained nervous in the presence of magicians.

  The disc was set in the torque, with the diamonds around it at equal intervals.

  “Here,” Peirol said, handing the bracelet to Klek next to a window. He stared into it, as hypnotized as Peirol had been. In the heart of the disc a purple fire seethed and curled. The diamonds caught the sunlight, concentrated it, and shot it into the disc, and the fires burned higher.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it, Peirol. You were far more than a journeyman where you came from.”

  Peirol nodded.

  “Never anything like it,” Klek whispered, turning the torque back and forth. “Incredible. Just incredible. Magnate Niazbeck will be stunned.”

  • • •

  Peirol heard nothing for three days, then Klek told everyone in the shop they were to be honored by a visit from Magnate Niazbeck and a client. The client was named Vel, younger than Reni, lovely in a calculating sort of way, with her husband-to-be, a trading magnate perhaps four times the woman’s age.

  She’d insisted on meeting the man who made the bracelet that won her heart and made her more than willing to become the trader’s second wife. Klek presented Peirol, who bowed very deeply.

  “You have much talent beyond your size,” Vel said. “I’ve never seen such beauty in a piece of jewelry. You are an artist.”

  “I thank you,” Peirol said, bowing once again. “But the true artist is my master. I’m but an artisan, who carries out his designs.”

  Niazbeck was startled, hid it well. Klek had to turn away, to hide a bit of coughing.

  “Perhaps, one day,” Vel said, “you, or rather Magnate Niazbeck, will devise something equally striking, and my dear husband might choose it for me.”

  The trader looked a little worried. Vel seemingly didn’t notice and passed down the benches, cooing at other slaves’ handiwork. The trader leaned close to Peirol.

  “My Vel mentioned you possibly making something striking someday? Well, such a piece would find favor with me, quite immediately. But not for her: for my first wife, who I’m afraid is behaving in an unreasonably jealous manner about our wedding plans.”

  “Something my overseer, Klek, told me about one of Magnate Niazbeck’s earlier works, something he himself might have forgotten, has sparked an idea,” Peirol lied. “Perhaps, in a week, perhaps two, I might have something not totally unworthy of your attention.”

  The trader beamed, hurried after his wife.

  Magnate Niazbeck eyed Peirol. “You are very clever, my lad.”

  “Nossir,” Peirol said. “I meant what I said. You’ve given me a space for my horizons to widen, to grow, and I’ll be cursed if I don’t express my gratitude.”

  “I see,” Niazbeck said. “Don’t worry. If you can drag another commission out of Tightfist, well, you’ll be properly rewarded. I promise you.”

  Peirol bowed, rose as Niazbeck waddled away, noted Klek still standing there. “Clever, clever,” the older man said, “I just hope not too clever.”

  “I shall try to avoid that.”

  Klek nodded. “What do you need for your next masterpiece? Assuming, that is, you truly have an idea.”

  “I do,” Peirol said. “First, I’ll need a colorless diamond, decent sized, perhaps three varjas. And, I think, a dozen moonstones. Big ones. This time, I’m going to make a necklace.”

  • • •

  Peirol really hadn’t much liked what he’d done with the amethyst. It was clever, but far too garish for his own tastes. But he’d learned long ago, shortly after he’d been accepted as an apprentice by Rozan, that wealth in no way suggested good taste. In fact, the master jeweler had said, the fresher the gold the bigger the bauble should be, “for most men who’ve just made themselves rich want to trumpet it to the world, if not the tax collector.”

  Peirol thought about what the trader’s first wife might appreciate, and set to work. He chose the clearest and second largest of Niazbeck’s diamonds, which had already been cut pear-shaped, and took it to Tejend for a dose of sorcery. The spell was simple, but the effect was exactly as Peirol had wanted.

  Since the wizard still wouldn’t accept any sort of payment, Peirol, hewing to his own ethics, made him a small wand out of a length of bicolored tourmaline that had been simply faceted and polished. He told the magician there wasn’t any magic in it, but he imagined Tejend could provide that.

  He then carefully, remembering their delicacy, worked the moonstones into simple ovals and set them in silver around the diamond. “No gold,” he told Klek, “even if the client’s six kinds of a vulgar bitch. I have a few standards.”

  Klek, when the necklace was finished, showed it to Niazbeck, who chortled gleefully and summoned the trader and his first wife. Peirol was amused to note that the woman, thirty years ago, would have looked a twin sister to Vel. The woman gasped three times, then took the necklace with trembling fingers. The trader clasped it around her neck, held out a mirror.

  “Oh merciful goddess,” the woman whispered.

  It was fairly special. The diamond had been ensorcelled while Peirol moved a succession of multicolored candle flames close to the stone, then away into darkness, waiting a moment before holding up another candle. Forever after, it would echo those reflections to anyone who peered into its depths.

  The moonstones were magicked to simply reflect bits of the candle glow, no more.

  The trader was as impressed as his wife. “Magnate,” he said, “you were always a genius, it appears.”

  Niazbeck looked humble.

  “Now, magnate, you might now do me a great favor,” the trader said. “Don’t come up with any more brilliances, at least not until I make a dozen or so successful ventures so I can pay for your baubles.”

  Everyone laughed, but Peirol wondered how much gold Niazbeck had charged for the jewels.
<
br />   • • •

  “You’re to be rewarded,” Klek said the next morning. Behind him was Guallauc. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Follow me,” the factor said, and strode out. Peirol obeyed, and saw, sitting in front of the great house on the drive, a carriage.

  Just a look at the world beyond these walls is reward enough, he thought. Maybe enough to bring me the beginnings of a plan to get away.

  • • •

  Quite a hobby, Peirol thought.

  “I knew the proper reward for you wouldn’t be gold or anything else, but the chance to watch my cannoneers’ evolutions,” Niazbeck said.

  “You understand me well,” Peirol said, trying to keep from shivering in the chill wind from the ocean. There were sixty men on the grassy slopes above the water, drawn up behind the four objects of Niazbeck’s adoration: ribbed tubes eleven feet long, each weighing more than all their eight main attendants.

  Niazbeck had insisted Peirol be given the “honor” of inspecting the artillery group — a battery, he called it — he’d personally raised, outfitted, and paid. “Some think it’s but my silly hobby, but soon enough they’ll realize I can scent the wind well, and have the best interests of my adopted kingdom at heart.”

  The cannoneers held a dizzying array of trades, from gunners to matrosses and their assistants, blacksmiths, harness makers, carpenters, pioneers, guards, cooks, sutlers, and trumpeters, all wearing the Niazbeck-designed uniforms of purple and white, with high green boots. Peirol thought, if he had to choose a trade among them, he would’ve been one of the kettledrummers, who had their own cart to hold the great drums, with the trumpeters leading the horses.

  The men glowered uniformly at Peirol, corrcctly thinking that if it weren’t for this damned dwarf, they could be in a nice warm taphouse with some mulled wine, trying to cozen a wench for their knee. The horses, twice as many as the men, were far friendlier.

  “Your opinion, Peirol?” Niazbeck asked.