Blood Storm: The Books of Blood and Iron

by Steven Harper

  The harbormaster was passing behind Karsten’s seat with the worried-looking man in tow, and he caught this last remark.

  “You’re telling him about our new sewers and aqueducts, Your Highness!” he said with obvious delight. “Yes! We must think big, dig deep! You like to dig like all trolls, don’t you?”

  Was that snootiness in the harbormaster’s tone? Danr couldn’t quite tell. The words rubbed his hair in the wrong direction, however, and he was almost glad when the truth-teller in him forced him to answer the question.

  “No,” he said. “You like to cheat on your wife like all humans, don’t you?”

  Another dreadful silence crashed across the table. Aisa raised a goblet and Danr saw she was hiding her laughter behind it. The worried-looking man looked even more worried. The harbormaster grew bloodred beneath his white hair. He opened his mouth to speak.

  “Well,” Karsten interjected, “I suppose you had that coming, Willem. As you yourself like to say, we can’t make assumptions about the Nine Gods or the Nine People. Think big, and all that, right?”

  “Right.” The word came out like a half-bitten bit of apple. “If you’ll excuse me. Come, Punsle.” And he swirled away with the worried-looking Punsle behind him.

  “I could have lived without that,” Karsten observed. “The harbormaster is … aloof, but I need his support for the sewer project. Water is part of his purview, you know.”

  “I would say I’m sorry if I could,” Danr said blandly.

  Karsten sighed. “He has his fingers everywhere. He’s even used emissaries to strike up a friendship with Queen Vesha.”

  “Queen Vesha?” Danr said in surprise. “She’s my aunt.”

  Now Karsten looked surprised. “I didn’t know that. I’ve invited her to visit, but she never comes. Do you know why?”

  And Danr was forced to answer. “Death cursed her. Aunt Vesha will live forever unless she comes out from under the ground. Then Death will take her. It’s a curse because Aunt Vesha has dreamed of coming into the open sky all her life.”

  “Oh.” Karsten thought about that. “That’s awful. But you don’t want to talk about all this. Maybe I can give you a different favor.”

  “Could you bid for the mermaid yourself?”

  Karsten shook his head. “I owe the Obsidia too much money and can’t piss them off.”

  “Step aside, please!” Talfi barked from the throng below. “The elf lord wishes to inspect the merchandise.”

  Danr glanced at Hector, and a rush of anxiety swept him as he remembered that Hector had seen Talfi and Ranadar in the tavern earlier. They hadn’t known during the planning stage that Hector himself would be auctioning off the mermaid. If he recognized Ranadar, the entire thing would fall apart. Fortunately, Hector hadn’t been in the room when the seneschal announced Ranadar’s name. But what about his face?

  The sea of people parted for Ranadar—no one wanted to touch an elf for fear that his glamour might infect them. An elf glided forward, and it took Danr a moment to realize it was Ranadar. He had altered his appearance with a glamour. His hair was the rich ash blond of an oak tree, and his eyes were blue instead of green. Small shifts in his facial features had changed his face as well, making him all but unrecognizable. Relief made Danr limp.

  Ranadar, as if by accident, adjusted the heavy pouch at his belt. It clinked impressively, though Danr happened to know it was filled with nothing but scraps of bronze. He chewed his lip and took a drink from his goblet to disguise the nerves that rose again.

  A ladder was bolted to the side of the tank. Ranadar climbed it, graceful and sure even in his robe. In the water, the mermaid stirred and looked up at him. Ranadar looked down at her, splashed the surface, and seemed to lose his balance a little. He caught himself and, because Danr was watching for it, saw him squeeze the little leather pouch of liquid into the tank as he did so.

  “Fascinating creature,” Ranadar said as he climbed down. “Very fascinating. Auctioneer, what is the starting bid?”

  “Two gold hands, my lord,” pronounced Hector. If he recognized Ranadar from the tavern, he gave no sign of the fact.

  Others climbed the ladder as well, and the crowd resurged around the tank. Aisa got up and quietly slipped into the main group.

  “Lords and ladies,” Hector boomed at last, “we have before you a fine specimen of the merfolk, ready for an ornamental pond or fountain or other services. You will be the talk of Balsia with this unique item! The price includes this fine tank so you can easily transport your new prize home. Let the bidding begin! Do I hear two gold hands for—”

  A filmy cloud burst from the mermaid’s mouth and nose and the gills on the side of her neck. Her face went pale as milk, throwing her tattoos into sharp relief, and her eyelids drooped. She slid to the bottom of the tank. The crowd burst into mutters and low cries.

  “What is wrong with it?” asked Aisa, who had stationed herself toward the rear. “Is it sick?”

  “Is it dying?” Danr heard another voice—Kalessa. “I think it must be dying. That is disgusting—I do not wish to buy a slave that will die.”

  “It’s dying!” Aisa repeated. “Who wants to buy a dying mermaid?”

  The word dying washed through the bidders with astounding speed. Sharlee held up her hands. “Please, my lords and ladies! The mermaid is fully healthy and completely—”

  The mermaid threw up again. The smell of rotting fish drifted from the tank, and the nobility closest to it shrank away. Ranadar drew himself upright. He nodded once at the Obsidia and strode stiffly toward his table. He sat with his back to the mermaid and took a deep draft from his goblet as if she didn’t exist. After a brief pause, several other bidders did the same, scattering in a dozen different directions, some disappointed, some in a huff, but all of them taking their money.

  “Wait!” Hector begged. “My lords! My ladies! Nothing is wrong here!”

  “I bid two silver fingers,” Aisa called from her new position near the tank.

  Hector blinked at her. “Two—?”

  “Indeed.” Aisa held up the coins.

  “That’s below the starting bid, honey,” Sharlee pointed out. She recognized Aisa, of course, but that didn’t matter now.

  “I have watched many slave auctions,” Aisa replied calmly, “and I have learned the opening bid is nothing but a guide. I have also learned that when the bidding begins, you must, by law, accept any bid made in good faith. I have plenty of faith.” Her face was bland, but Danr heard the quiet contempt in her voice. Danr slapped the table in front of him, and everyone looked at him.

  “My lady placed a bid,” he rumbled. “Two fingers.”

  “You have to accept the bid, you do,” the mayor said from his own seat. Danr had all but forgotten about him. “We all heard you open the bidding and that’s the law, the law.”

  “We must follow the law,” Karsten said, not bothering to hide a smile.

  Hector looked desperately around the room and swallowed hard. “My lord?” he said to Karsten.

  “I’d like to help,” Karsten said, “but the law is the law.”

  “The young lady has bid … two fingers. Do I hear …” Hector had to force himself to speak, and Danr kept a tight smile off his face. “… three?”

  Every eye was riveted on the goings-on. The mermaid lay listlessly at the bottom of her tank. Someone dropped a spoon, and it rattled loudly on the stone floor.

  “No other bids?” Hector said desperately. “Are we sure, lords and ladies? Going once, then.” He paused in hope. “Twice? Three times.” He sighed. “Very well. S—”

  “Four fingers!”

  Everyone turned to look. The bidder was the dwarf, the one dressed all in red. Danr stared, doubly startled. What game were the Obsidia playing at? The dwarf worked for them.

  “He is a servant,” Ranadar called in a haughty voice. “He doesn’t belong here.”

  “Among the Stane, I’m just as noble as you, elf,” the dwarf growled back. “I bid f
our fingers.”

  “Four fingers,” repeated Hector quickly. “I have four fingers. Do I hear—”

  “Five,” Aisa jumped in.

  “Twenty,” said the dwarf. His voice was hoarse and deep. “The mermaid belongs with a proper owner, one who can appreciate her. Definitely not a woman who doesn’t know to keep quiet in public or a half-blood whose mother took a troll to her bed because she couldn’t find a pig.”

  “You dare,” Kalessa hissed, reaching for her enchanted sword.

  The words hit hard. Danr’s fist clenched. Insults to himself he had dealt with his entire life, but his mother was something else entirely. Before he could consider the idea further, he closed his right eye and peered at the dwarf with his true eye.

  The dwarf flashed into full view, and Danr saw through the red silk and velvet. He saw pieces of the dwarf’s past and present. With everyone watching, Danr stumped over to the dwarf with a friendly little smile on his face and tapped his cheek under his eye with a thick fingernail, ignoring the staring crowd, who was having the best night ever.

  “Go ahead,” he murmured, “and ask me what I see.”

  “What… . what you saw?” the dwarf echoed, a little nervous now.

  Danr decided to take it as a question. He kept his voice low. “You make golems, and no one knows if they’re alive or not, if you’re creating life or not. You don’t know it, either. That bothers you, but you’re afraid and you need money, so you sell your craft like a Rookery prostitute. And you’re afraid of the Obsidia, so you sell yourself to them, even though someone else offered you more money.” He leaned closer. “But you don’t have to, friend Stane. All you need to do is walk away. You can go home to the cool darkness, to your old, comfortable workshop, where all the corners are worn smooth and where the forge is always hot. Just walk out that door and don’t look over your shoulder. Leave the mermaid to us. I’ll arrange for Queen Vesha herself to protect you from the Obsidia.”

  The dwarf hesitated, and for a moment Danr was sure he was going to turn and leave. Then he crossed his arms. “I don’t need the protection of a half-blood.” He looked at the auctioneer. “My bid is still twenty!”

  Shit, Danr thought. Aisa only had thirty fingers of silver to bid with. Now Hector was smiling. In that instant, Danr saw that the entire auction had been a scam from the beginning. Even Hector’s distress had been false. The Obsidia had never intended to sell the mermaid in the first place, and they had given their loyal dwarfish servant a pouch filled with gold to ensure that she would stay in their possession. The auction was an empty show, and Danr’s plan had been a mere hiccup along the way. But what had it been for? The mermaid shifted weakly at the bottom of her tank as Danr cast about for something to do.

  “The mermaid is sick, friend,” he said, still having to try. “What if she dies before the week is out? My friend here wants to—”

  “Twenty-five,” the dwarf said, louder.

  “You already hold the maximum bid,” the harbormaster said. “Why bid more?”

  “Thirty,” Aisa called.

  “One hand.” The dwarf produced a gold coin and held it up. Aisa’s face fell and Danr’s heart went with it. He looked at the prince in mute appeal, but the prince set his mouth regretfully.

  “One hand is the bid,” said Hector, playing up a patently false relief for the entranced crowd. “Once? Twice? Three times?” He clapped his hands sharply. “Sold to the Stane in red.”

  In the pandemonium that followed, Danr slipped up to the mayor. “Do you know where the Obsidia live?”

  The mayor looked up at him. “I do, I do.”

  • • •

  The morning sky had grown heavy, and a salty wind was soughing in from the Iron Sea to the west. Bits of rain tapped the ground. In a grassy courtyard, water sloshed as two golems hauled the listless mermaid from the tank and dragged her, dripping, across a perfectly manicured lawn to a pool of salt water while the red-clad dwarf squinted at them from under a maple tree. The mermaid’s tail left a trail across the grass. She was quite beautiful, even with, or perhaps because of, the mask of blue and black tattoos that covered her face. Marble rimmed the pool’s edges, and the little brass fish that seem to be a requirement of every ornamental pond in the world spouted streams of water into it. The golems gently dropped the mermaid in. She sank beneath the surface while the golems, who had been given no new orders, stayed at the edge. The dwarf was battling a fierce headache from even the weak sunlight, and he wanted nothing more than to disappear into the cool, welcoming depths of the basement and sleep.

  The mermaid regained her energy quickly in the fresh, clean water. She shook her head, and then, before the dwarf could quite follow what was going on, she shot halfway out of the water, grabbed one of the golems, and dragged it into the pool. The golem! The precious, precious golem! It had taken him weeks to construct it! He knew every inch, every fingerprint he had left on the clay, every bit of magic and machinery that made up the interior, every rune on its surface, every drop of blood it had taken to grant it life. The dwarf skittered to the water’s edge, then stopped himself, not wanting to get too close. The second golem didn’t react.

  “Connect to your brother golem and report what is happening,” he barked at it.

  The dwarf had used the same blood—his own—to bring the golem’s to life, which allowed the two of them to share certain properties. From the golem’s azure eyes projected a silent image, half-size, of the bottom of the pool from the first golem’s perspective. The mermaid had broken the golem’s arm off and was beating it over the head.

  The dwarf put both his hands on top of his head in consternation. It felt as if the mermaid had torn off his own arm. “Tell it to leave the pool!”

  From the bottom of the pool, the golem strode in slow motion for the side of the pool, but the mermaid darted in like a shark to whack it on the knee with its own arm, causing more damage and slowing it down. The dwarf howled. “Tell it to hurry!”

  More rain was falling, but the sky was saving the big show for later. “My brother golem is moving as fast as it can, master,” the golem said. “Shall I tell it to fight back?”

  “Yes!” The red-clad dwarf was hopping with agitation now. “Tell it!”

  The golem projecting the image cocked its head. The golem in the pool shot out an arm and caught the mermaid around the throat. Her shriek was muffled by the water. She thrashed and fought, but the injured golem’s grip was too strong. Her tattooed face bore an expression of terror. The dwarf smiled.

  “Now,” the dwarf said, “tell it—”

  “Tell it,” interrupted a new voice, “to let the mermaid go and leave the pool as best it can without injuring the mermaid in any way. Now.”

  “Yes, master,” said the second golem, and in the pool the first golem obeyed—or tried to.

  “And you, Hokk, should know better,” continued Hector Obsidia mildly. He was still wearing his black evening clothes.

  Hokk the dwarf spun and jerked into a bow. “My lord,” he quavered. “I was just trying to preserve your property. I didn’t mean—”

  “The only reason I’m not sending you into that pool to help the golem out,” Hector said thoughtfully, “is that I need you to make more golems.”

  “She is a beautiful specimen,” Sharlee Obsidia observed, peering into the thrashing water from a safe distance. A stiff breeze rustled her night-black dress, and the leaves on the trees flipped to show their pale undersides. “Her ailment seems to have cleared completely. Really, I expected something better from Aisa than the old trick of making a slave look sick in order to bring the price down. I do wonder what she poured into the tank, though.”

  “Your eye for detail is a delight as always, my love,” said Hector. “However, I have to say that you missed the troll boy’s true eye. He turned it on me in the tavern, and I found it an extremely … uncomfortable experience.”

  “Darling!” Sharlee was instantly at his side. “What did he say? Did it hurt?�
�

  Hector’s face was a stone. “He said I was rich and that I carried insatiable darkness and hunger inside me.”

  “But none of that is news!” Sharlee cried. “That dark ambition is one of the things I love best about you. That and your perfect taste in a wife.”

  “I agree with you,” Hector said peevishly. “But it wasn’t his place to say it.”

  “Oh.” Sharlee took his hand and stroked the back. “Then once we get what we need from him, we’ll crush him. I will crush him. For you.”

  Hector gave her a fond smile and stroked her hair as the rain fell a little harder. “You always know what to say, my shining star. But now I have to deal with our dwarfish friend.”

  Here, Hokk stiffened.

  “I think a onetime reduction in salary equal to twice the amount it will cost to fix this golem will be sufficient punishment.” Hector paused, his arm still around Sharlee. “That, and ten lashes by the golem itself, once you’ve finished repairing it.”

  “I want to watch,” Sharlee whispered in his ear. “And I want you to watch me watch.”

  Hokk the dwarf paled beneath his red swaddling. “But, my lord—”

  “Twenty, then,” Hector said amiably. “We’ll watch for the bone to appear. Is there anything else you wish to add?”

  “Please do,” murmured Sharlee.

  Hokk looked down at the grass. “No, my lord.”

  The golem hauled itself uncertainly out of the pool, using one arm and favoring its bad leg. It was followed by the sort of spitting sound a whale might make, and the golem’s arm flew out of the pool to land at the dwarf’s feet. Sharlee turned away from Hector and regarded it thoughtfully.

  “Hokk,” she added, “I believe my husband may be persuaded to curtail part of your punishment if you repair the golem by tomorrow morning.”

  The dwarf straightened. “Yes, my lady.” He snatched up the arm and led the golem away.

  “Now, why did you do that, my dear?” Hector asked. “You said you wanted to watch.”