Contents
From the Editor
By Adrian Collins
Brazen Dreams
By Matthew Ward
The Mud, The Blood and the Years
Article by John R. Fultz
An Interview with Brandon Sanderson
Review: The Vagrant
Author: Peter Newman
Review by Tom Smith
Excerpt: A Crown for Cold Silver
By Alex Marshall
Ashes
By Tara Calaby
Redemption Waits
A Keiko short story by Mike Brooks
An Interview with Peter V. Brett
Excerpt: Prince of Fools
By Mark Lawrence
The Halfwyrd’s Burden
A Steelhaven short story by Richard Ford
The cover art for Grimdark Magazine issue #4 was created by Jason Deem.
Jason Deem is an artist and designer residing in Dallas, Texas. More examples of his work can be found at: spiralhorizon.deviantart.com, on Twitter (@jason_deem) and on Instagram (spiralhorizonart).
From the Editor
Adrian Collins
With issue #4, we’re now a year old. Beers all round! Hard to believe it was only twelve months ago that we listed GdM on Submission Grinder, Duotrope and Ralan and started getting submissions in.
We’ve been lucky with the authors who have given us their time and efforts, and even luckier with amount of readers who have parted with their hard-earned to get involved with the ezine.
The GdM team is looking forward to bringing you more and more grimdark goodness over the next twelve months. For now, we hope you enjoy issue #4.
Adrian Collins
Founder
Connect with the Grimdark Magazine team at:
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Brazen Dreams
Matthew Ward
The vault door was a featureless slab of white stone. It ran floor to ceiling, with suggestion of neither join nor crack in its pristine surface. There weren't even seams where it met the tunnel walls. In fact, Elida wouldn't have known it was a door at all, but for her companion's insistence.
Pulling back from the control panel, she threw a glance in Vortane's direction, the weight of her airmask making the motion ungainly. The grav-boots were worse – every step felt like walking through molasses – but at least they hadn't needed to bother with full containment suits. He was running a gloved hand along the surface of the door, as if he could unlock its secrets by touch. Even with the airmask half-covering his thin, watchful face, he radiated quiet intensity.
‘I think I can open it,’ Elida said, wincing at how tinny her voice sounded through the comm circuit.
‘You're certain?’
Elida bit back a response that teetered between irreverence and exasperation. Vortane loved to pull her strings. ‘Of course not,’ she said instead. ‘I've never seen anything like this.’
Vortane raised an eyebrow. ‘You remember when I recruited you? I recall you saying that there wasn't a lock you couldn't open.’
How could she forget? She'd been desperate to get out of the Camarelles slums, and had talked up her skills considerably. Of course, she hadn't known who or what Vortane was at that point – he'd just been a saviour, cutting her loose from a term as an indentured factory worker. ‘I wouldn't know about that.’
‘Just like you don't know about any of this?’ The comm channel's static couldn't hide his wry amusement.
‘When it comes to this Forgotten Age stuff, guesses are all I have. I can bridge the connection. I think it'll open the door – if it is a door...’
‘It's a door.’
‘...but there's always the possibility it'll trigger something else instead.’
‘What sort of something else?’
Elida shrugged. ‘An antiquated alarm, defensive system, emergency coolant venting? Could be anything.’
Vortane seemed to consider for a moment. ‘Well, who wants to live forever? Do you? I certainly don't. I'd get bored.’
A warbling chime cut across the comm channel. Grimacing at the sudden noise, Elida stabbed a button on her airmask's cheek-piece, and the sound cut out. ‘That was the shuttle's proximity web,’ she said, trying to sound surprised.
‘So it was,’ said Vortane. His voice was calm, but he tapped at the ruby amulet hanging around his neck, just as he always did when unsettled. ‘A drifting asteroid isn't the place for a chance meeting – someone must have followed us. I must visit Bendick after we're done here and... reacquaint him with the precepts of client confidentiality.’
Elida caught his tone and was glad it wasn't directed at her. ‘Do we continue?’
‘Of course. It's at least a mile back to the surface, so we've a little time yet. Who knows? We might find something suitably... welcoming... inside.’
He smiled, leaving her in no doubt that he knew exactly what was inside the vault. Arrogant devil, always confident he had the answers. She'd give a good deal to see him wrong-footed, but only under the proper circumstances. ‘Understood.’
Reaching into the control panel, Elida pressed the end of her multitool across what she hoped was the correct circuit pairing. There was a sharp crack, and a shower of sparks pattered off her airmask's faceplate. There was no alarm, just a deep, mournful rumble.
Turning, Elida saw that the face of the door was no longer smooth. A series of concentric circles had appeared in the stone. They twisted clockwise and counter-clockwise, then irised outwards.
Synthflame torch held high, Elida followed Vortane across the threshold. The crunch of gravel beneath her boots was replaced by the hollow thud of metal. Looking down, she saw brass floor tiles gleaming where her footsteps had scattered the accumulated dust of centuries. Swirling shapes were embossed into the faces of the tiles, and torch-cast shadows pooled in the grooves.
Deeper and deeper into the vault they went, until Elida could no longer see the entrance. There was just the patch of floor illuminated by her torch and the bobbing will o' the wisp of Vortane's synthflame ahead of her. His stride was careful, unhurried. Apparently he didn't care that he had pursuers drawing closer all the time. Arrogance again, she decided. Probably he thought he'd be able to talk his way out of it.
‘Take a look at this,’ he called, voice crackling across the comm channel.
Vortane was standing next to a wall when she reached him. No, not a wall, Elida realised, a pane of filthy glass, framed in ornate brass. Similar panes stretched away to her left and right. Pressing her torch against the glass, she peered into the space beyond and stifled a gasp of horror.
There was a man-like shape inside. He – if it was indeed a “he” – wore a tabard of plain black cloth over ridged metal armour. He stood hunched over, his spine arched upward. A cluster of cables protruded from his back, and vanished in the darkness of the vault's ceiling. It was clear that the cables were the only things holding the figure in place – without them, he'd have slumped forward against the glass. Elida crouched, trying to glimpse his face. He had none – just a smooth, white mask. She looked again, and realised that what she'd first taken to be armour was, in fact, his “skin” – an exoskeleton of riveted brass plating. ‘Mechtrites?’ She peered into the next cell, and saw another figure identical to the first. ‘Why are there mechtrites here?’
‘Why not?’ asked Vortane. ‘Did you really think they were just for serving drinks?’ He tapped on the glass. ‘No, they had to
come from somewhere. Those we're used to were simply left behind after the old war. I've been searching for a place like this for a long time.’
Elida wanted to look away from the mechtrite, but found that she couldn't. The sight made her skin crawl, but she found it fascinating, all the same. When she'd been a young girl in Camarelles, a troupe of mummers had strayed beyond the gleaming inner-city towers. They'd only managed a single performance before one of their number was stabbed and the others robbed blind, but she still remembered the mannequins they'd brought with them, great gangling things taller than a man, manipulated from above by a web of strings. The similarity was striking. Lost as she was in bittersweet recollection, it took a moment for Vortane's words to register. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked. ‘What “old war”?’
There was no response. Elida turned to see his torch bobbing away to her left. Presumptuous sod. Three years together, and still he couldn't bear to share his secrets. In the beginning, she'd thought he didn't trust his gutter-born protégé. Now, she was convinced that he simply couldn't bring himself to shed his veil of mystery, not even for a minute. She supposed it was wise. After all, it wouldn't do for folk to learn that the great and powerful Vortane, spymaster of Clan Balanos, was a fraud.
Oh, he was good at ferreting out secrets, she'd give him that. Whispers and rumours were Vortane's weapons, and she'd seen him wield them well. The Camarelles lawkeepers had spent five years trying to bring down the dockside gangs, but had never found evidence to convict the headmen. When the clan finally sent Vortane in, he managed it in five days. Nobles were no safer than gutter-born. He'd broken Lord Atalan by uttering a single line from a Lowtown address. To this day, Elida didn't know its significance. A mistress? An undesirable business partner? Vortane had said afterwards that he hadn't known the nature of his lordship's secret either, just that the address would provide the needed leverage. Atalan's own fears, and Vortane's reputation, had done the rest. That had been Elida's first and only glimpse beneath her master's veil, but it had been enough to tell her that being a shadow was nothing more than a confidence trick. She'd learned confidence tricks running with Roth's gang, and gotten good at them, so how much more did Vortane really have to teach her?
Presently, she realised that the line of cells wasn't straight, but curved, like the rim of a wheel. They reached the end of a row and descended a wide stair. She had the sense of other cells passing to her left and right, row upon row cloaked in musty darkness. Just how big was this place?
‘You see,’ said Vortane, toying with his amulet, ‘the clans have forgotten so much. There's a tendency to assume the past was much as the present is. We see mechtrites serving drinks, or bearing gaudy palanquins, and consider ourselves fortunate to have been bequeathed such helpful mechanical slaves.’
It struck Elida that he was being unusually garrulous, the triumph of the moment overriding his natural caution. That was fine with her. Perhaps he did have one last thing to teach her, after all. ‘So what are they really?’
‘What else did our ancestors leave for us? They're weapons.’
A squat, toroid console sat a short distance from the foot of the stairs, its surface covered in a forest of switches. The console itself appeared to be panelled in a rich, dark wood. How it had survived the passing years, Elida couldn't begin to guess. In the centre, accessed through a split in the console ring, was a chair. It was curiously ornate, made of black metal that looked almost like polished stone, the outer edges filigreed in silver. It seemed more like a throne than the command chair it presumably was.
Vortane crossed to the console, his manner that of a child loose in a confectioner's. ‘This is more than I'd hoped. The interface seems intact, and...’ He stabbed a finger down on the console. A thousand bright pinpricks burst into being high above, bathing the chamber in warm, yellow light. ‘Yes, yes, yes! It still has power after all this time. Incredible, simply incredible. I found one before, you know, on one of Singoria's moons. The chamber had collapsed, destroying almost everything.’ He set his synthflame torch aside, and tapped absent-mindedly at his amulet. ‘It was a waste, a terrible waste.’
For the first time, Elida was able to get a proper sense of the cavern's size. In the dark, she'd had no idea just how far they'd descended. Now, she saw the brass-framed hibernation cells rising above her like the tiered seats of a stadium, each ring contained by curlicued rails and tattered velvet drapes. There must have been hundreds of mechtrites. A body could live a dozen lives of luxury just from the sale of what was in the chamber. If the mechtrites were indeed weapons, as Vortane said, then their contribution to Clan Balanos' war effort would be incalculable. No wonder he was so glad to find them.
Vortane busied himself prodding and poking at the consoles, practically hopping from foot to foot with excitement. Vortane, destroyer of the rich and powerful, giddy as a child. Elida had never seen him this way. It was pathetic. Giving him a wide birth, she slipped past the console to take a closer look at the chair. Close up, it looked even more like a throne, what with its high back and quilted seat. Like everything else in the chamber, its creators had made the effort to conceal function with form, hiding its cabling within its ridged frame. She ran a finger along the edge of an armrest, brushing dust to the floor, and pictured someone sitting in the chair, issuing orders to subordinates labouring away at the console. ‘Nice chair.’
Vortane didn't look up. ‘If my research is correct, that's the command interface. It's the hub that sends the mechtrites their orders. They're capable of some limited self-awareness, of course, but they're really more of a hive.’
‘You mean, they obey whoever sits in that chair?’
‘That's the gist of it, certainly. The detail's a little more involved.’ He looked up as a sharp, clattering sound echoed down through the chamber – the kind of noise that might be made by a boot punting a loose piece of stone across the tunnel. ‘There must be a way to close the door from this side. Help me look, would you?’
Elida ignored him, unable to take her eyes off the chair. The plan was the plan, but this? Well, this was too good an opportunity to pass up. There was no point thinking about it – that would just give doubt time to grow. Taking a deep breath, she twisted around and sat down in the chair.
‘Wait, what are you doing?’ Vortane shouted. ‘Elida?’
The expression on his face was priceless, a mix of fear and betrayal. For once, she'd surprised him. That alone made it worthwhile. That alone...
Elida felt a sudden spike of pain between her shoulder blades. Darkness clouded her vision. She awoke a heartbeat later, woken by a raw, agonised scream. Her scream. Panic welled up inside her. She tried to pull away, but her body wouldn't respond. A second spike followed, this one at the base of her skull. She managed to stay conscious this time, and felt metal scraping her spine. She screamed again. When the sound faded, the pain went with it, and she could move once more.
Gasping for breath, Elida slumped forward. She didn't fall far. Something held her in position. Choking back a growing sense of revulsion, she reached up to her neck. Her probing fingers found a small, metal disc fused to her flesh and a tangle of cables extending back into the throne. What had she done?
Vortane watched her from a few paces away, his expression unreadable. ‘I warned you before about rashness, Elida. You should have listened.’
She ignored him. Even the memory of pain had faded now, and with it the worst of the revulsion. She felt dizzy, euphoric. Her vision fragmented, overlaid with a thousand glimmers of light. Elida blinked her eyes closed, but only the image of Vortane faded. She was left with a thousand not-quite-identical scenes of smeared glass and bright brass. The mechtrites. She was seeing through the mechtrites' eyes while they slumbered. It was more than that. She could feel their minds communicating with hers, the babble of voices like an ocean breaking across a shore. She focused on one voice in particular, and told it to awaken. In one of the scenes, the glass panel shattered as a b
rass hand crashed through it. Elida focused on another voice, and another. Grinning, she sent the same command again, and again.
She opened her eyes to see Vortane watching her thoughtfully. ‘I don't suppose you're rousing the mechtrites to help repel our intruders, are you?’
Elida laughed, elated to be in a position of power for once. ‘Why would I? We go way back, Roth and me – from before I wasted three years with you.’
Four mechtrites clanked down the steps and took up position behind Vortane. Two seized the shadow's arms and held him fast. Infuriatingly, he didn't seem at all concerned. The other two took up flanking positions behind her throne.
‘You should know that I'm very disappointed in you,’ he said.
‘I guess I'll live with that.’
He watched her, a thoughtful expression on his face. ‘Will you? Yes, I suppose you will.’
Elida scarcely heard him – she was too busy rousing other mechtrites to wakefulness. Her gamble had worked out better than she could have expected. Not only had she denied Vortane control of the mechtrites, she could now order them aboard Roth's transport, saving the considerable effort of carting them away.
Through their eyes, she could see Roth and his lads making their way down through the tiers. There were twenty of them in all – far more than necessary, as things had turned out, but it had seemed prudent not to take any chances. One of the newcomers, startled by a mechtrite, whipped up his pistol and started screaming incoherent threats. Elida suppressed a sigh and ordered the mechtrite to freeze. She switched her comm to the frequency Roth was using. ‘Calm down. I have them under control.’
‘ And what about him, love?’ asked Roth, reaching the foot of the stairs. The sights of his pistol didn't waver from Vortane. ‘Is he under control?’
Grimdark Magazine Issue #4 ePub Page 1