Prodigal Steelwielder (Seals of the Duelists Book 3)

by Jasmine Giacomo

  To cover his discomfort, Taban replied, “You have Lifeseeker. Find him yourself.”

  Tarin flashed him a dark look but apparently did just that. Her arm flicked out, pointing to Taban’s right. “He’s inside this wall.” Her red eyebrows rose in amused surprise. “You think they did that to him for what he did to Kiwani?”

  Taban smirked. “I could get behind that idea. Let’s find out.” He peeled back the stone wall in even, scrolling curls, revealing a low, wide hollow in the rock. When Tarin brought her flame down, its warm light flickered across dozens of bright metal planes and angles.

  Taban squatted, frowning. A soft popping noise caught his ears, and he adjusted his angle of vision, spotting and finally recognizing an open mouth surrounded by plates of bright steel, which encased the rest of the prisoner’s body in some kind of metal suit. The man’s mouth remained open, silently waiting.

  Sints preserve me. He’s waiting to be fed like a helpless baby bird. Taban jerked backward in revulsion. The emperor had tortured his would-be successor into silent submission. None were left to defend him, to speak for him in public, because the First Singer’s spell of forgetting had wiped him from the memories of almost all of the empire citizens who had known him. Only a handful remained who remembered the man—Taban amongst them—and many of them dared not speak for fear of implicating themselves. But this? Taban felt his stomach turn.

  Apparently, Tarin had no such scruples. “Well, now, look who I found in a forgotten hole. Hello, Iggy.” Tarin tapped the man’s metal-coated forehead. “Looks like you might be hungry. Sorry, I dinna bring any food with me. You’ll just have to work on an empty stomach.”

  “Tarin…”

  His denmate shot him a hard look. “What?”

  “I used to know this man. I used to respect him. Aye, sure, his ‘glorious future’ was all a pack of lies, and I’m nae above a bit of distinct payback when it’s called for, but this… What if he’s not home in his skull anymore? What if he’s so far gone he canna remember has magic? He’ll be no use to the emperor then.”

  Ignaas’s mouth remained open. Tala leaned over Tarin’s shoulder, eyeing the nearly catatonic Ignaas. “Are you sure the emperor really needs this man? I mean, the Academy is full of powerful duelists, more than it’s had for centuries. Is there really a chance they won’t be powerful enough to defeat the Corona’s casters?”

  Tarin snorted. “Those students are all theory and no practice. Even if we trained them in forced savantism every day for the next ten years, no one knows how they’ll react when they find themselves in the middle of a war. I havena any idea how even I’ll react.”

  Taban nodded and addressed Tala. “Even Tarin and I have only done duel battles, aside from those times we were saving the empire and all. They’re young, and their training is incomplete. They may be more help to the enemy than to us.”

  Tarin flicked open the heavy visor on the metal hood that covered Ignaas’s face except for his mouth. “This man may be the most experienced duelist in the empire. Even with our hexmagic and the potioneers who’re learning of the old ways, Ignaas witten Oost is probably still the most versatile caster. He spent decades training himself to simultaneously use miniscule movements in various parts of his body so he could control all his avatars at once. He spent longer training with unfocused magic than all the Hexmates, possibly put together. Unfortunately, the emperor is right. He’s the best defense we have.”

  It was Taban’s turn to glare. “Then let’s all hold hands and hope that the emperor’s punishment hasn’t driven him mad.” He looked into Ignaas’s eyes, which stared blankly. “Ignaas, can you understand me?”

  Ignaas blinked. His mouth finally closed. “Dark. So dark.”

  “Is he blind?” worried Tala.

  “Inside.” Ignaas’s voice was faint as a prayer.

  Taban leaned closer. “Ignaas, the enemy is coming. We need your help to defend the Academy. Do you hear me? They’re going to attack your campus and destroy everyone. Will you help us?”

  The prisoner’s eyes shifted, finally making contact with Taban’s gaze. “My empire. Did I say that?”

  Tarin leaned in from above, invading Taban’s tenuous link with Ignaas. “Not happening today, traitor. You come with us to the campus, and we take off all this steel so you can hurl everything you have at the Corona casters. Then we lock you down here again. Is that clear?”

  “Corona? Corona has magic? What kind?”

  Tarin shook her head at Taban, but he answered anyway. “It’s elemental, like duelism, but more powerful. Their spells affect wider areas than ours, and one caster can apparently take over another’s spell and maintain it. Their breed of magic falls somewhere between songwork and duelism.”

  Ignaas was silent so long that Taban worried he had fallen asleep, died with his eyes open, or simply retreated into silent madness. Then a tear escaped his eye and ran down the pale, puffy edge of his cheek. “I will serve. I will serve.”

  “Do you want to leave him in the steel coffin until you reach the Academy?” Tala asked.

  Tarin stood. “Easier if he can move around. He’s still potioneered anyway. Let’s take him out now.”

  Taban backed up a step. “What do you want to do about the extra security the emperor mentioned? He may not be able to do magic, but he can still run for it at an unguarded moment.”

  “If I may,” Tala said, “there’s a large contingent of caravan guards with nowhere to go at the moment. They were Imee’s, led by Dakila. He survived the battle, but… she didn’t. Last I saw of them, Dakila was using them to ferry emergency foodstuffs down to the emperor’s underground bunker, for lack of anything else to do.”

  “How many of them are there?” Tarin asked.

  “More than fifty, doing the work a singer could manage in half the time. Shall I sing us a portal to them?”

  Tarin nodded. “As soon as we pry this fine fellow out of his steel pajamas.”

  Taban let her do the honors. She elevated the steel coffin and popped its rivets apart with a series of loud thumps. The noise echoed painfully in the narrow corridor, and Taban winced. Tarin wafted away the top half of the steel coffin with its movable visor, and let it clatter to the floor. She scooped Ignaas out of the bottom half of like an oyster from its shell. Beneath his threadbare tunic, Ignaas’s body was an emaciated mess of saggy, pale flesh, under which his muscles had atrophied so far that Taban couldn’t tell he’d ever had any.

  “We canna move him in this condition,” he blurted. “He’s a living skeleton.”

  Tala stepped forward. Though her eyes were wide with alarm at Ignaas’s physical condition, her voice was steady. “I can heal him. Give me a few moments. I haven’t sung this song in some while.”

  Tarin laid Ignaas on the floor, where he trembled like a newborn calf, all rickety limbs and tattered clothes. Tala began to sing, using both her crystals, and before Taban’s eyes, Ignaas’s body fleshed out. The process didn’t seem particularly comfortable. Ignaas’s spine arched and his limbs shook like palm trees in a hurricane. It wasn’t particularly short either. Taban wasn’t sure if that was because Ignaas needed so much healing or if Tala’s songs were all the same length. That’s a good question for another time, perhaps. Provided we survive long enough.

  Finally, the healing ended, and Ignaas lay gasping and drenched in sweat on the cold stone floor.

  Tarin bent over him. “All right, then,” she said in a hard voice, “You can walk now. You’re welcome. Get up, and come with us, or I’ll put you back in your coffin.”

  It took Ignaas two tries to gain his feet, and though his body had been restored, he didn’t seem entirely sure how to use it. His hands patted at his bearded face, his hair, and his chest and arms. Still breathless, his eyes fell on Tala. “Thank you,” he muttered. “The steel in my back?”

  “We will take it out only if battle is imminent. You are still a prisoner of the empire.” Tarin grabbed his arm just above the elbow and tugged. “T
ala, the portal.”

  Tala sang a portal open, and Taban stepped through first, magic at the ready. He spotted a few dozen men engaged in the laborious process of winching large sacks of wheat through an opening in the flagstones of the courtyard. A few red torches burned amongst the pillars that edged the courtyard. Tala closed the portal behind her then sought out the man directing the winch.

  “Which of you is Dakila?”

  A man loading a bag of wheat into a sling dusted off his hands and stepped forward. While he and Tala held a brief conversation, Taban studied Tarin. She had gotten pretty dark with Ignaas. Even now, she seemed neither forgiving nor sympathetic for his plight.

  Tala returned. “Dakila and his men have agreed to accompany us to the Academy in exchange for a singer taking over their duties. I just portaled to Ingerika; she’ll get the food taken care of. I think it would be best if we keep Ignaas’s presence on campus a secret until absolutely necessary. Do you know a place where we can keep him?”

  A wry smile thinned Taban’s lips. “Aye, I have the perfect place.” He turned to Tarin and Ignaas. “His old office, that fancy one with all those exquisite statues and the fine wood paneling. Hexmagic Instructor Paat ordered it boarded up because not even he wants to be associated with that traitor.”

  Tarin smirked, and Ignaas’s brows drew together in hurt.

  After a bit of description and a rough map sketch, Tala began opening test portals to pinpoint Ignaas’s locked office. On her third try, her portal opened just inside the door of the small, private classroom where the former instructor had taught his invitation-only classes. In back lay his vast personal office.

  Several of Dakila’s men dashed through first, making sure the area was empty and clear. Then Tarin shuffled Ignaas through, followed by more guards. Taban waited until they were all through then stepped across the portal threshold just before Tala. She closed the portal and left everyone in musty, close darkness, crammed into two adjoining rooms with somewhere upward of three score people.

  Taban cast a warm yellow light, and Dakila’s men uttered gasps of awe and admiration for Ignaas’s exotic collection of knickknacks, statues, and other prized possessions. The guards shifted around the room, ostensibly checking for windows or other doors or something, but their fingers darted out to touch fragile vases and plates, delicate embroidery, and bright feathers on stuffed birds.

  In the crowded space, a sudden thud snapped all of Taban’s senses to alert. But the source was only Ignaas dropping to his knees. A small space cleared around him despite the crowded conditions, and Taban saw the former Hexmagic Instructor staring upward at his many beautiful belongings. His eyes streamed with tears. “Such beauty. All lost, all gone. Only the ugliness remains.”

  Both disturbed and impressed, Taban could only think of the uncomfortable truths that seemed to come from the minds of the mad.

  Dakila approached him. “How long are we staying here? These quarters are rather tight.”

  Taban glanced up at one of the high, narrow windows. “I’ll see if there’s any sign of attack. If we’re clear, we’ll remain here until dawn. Either way, I’ll alert the headmaster that we’re here.”

  Tarin called to him across the crowded room. “Even Ignaas? You’ll tell him he’s here?”

  “Langlaren is Warmaster. He deserves to know about this thrilling new weapon in his arsenal, doesna he?”

  Tarin shrugged. Taban gave her a curt nod then parted the iron bolts on the door and reattached them once he was outside in the cold.

  Taban stood still for a long moment, sending Wind, Earth, and Lifeseeker in all directions. But he found no threat, no gathering of forces. The campus was quiet and the students clustered in their barracks. He leapt adisc and shot up into the sky, shrouded in a cloak of warm air to fend off the chill. The full moon was high, shedding its light over the uneven tunnels, valleys, and arches that made up the Academy campus. Bridges and walkways punctuated the chiaroscuro of the scene below, and Taban felt a twinge of homesickness. Once, long ago, my world was as black and white as this night. Even now, I’m not so sure this battle is going to happen, or what the emperor truly intends by having us bring Ignaas here.

  He did a quick circuit of the campus, veering close to the sheer cliffs and scanning with Lifeseeker for knots of life in the surrounding valleys. Finding all clear, he was about to return to Ignaas’s old office, but a narrow window of opportunity blazed at him. He changed direction over the campus and headed toward the cozy faculty bungalows.

  He knocked on one of the doors, and eventually it opened to reveal a sleepy eunuch with close-cropped brown hair. Kipri blinked a few times in incomprehension. “Taban? What are you doing here? Has the attack begun? Where’s Tarin?” The eunuch’s questions became more aggressive, and he stepped out onto his porch in his nightshirt. In the sharp moonlight, the Aklaa’s hooded eyes took on a distinctly sinister cast.

  “We’re not under attack. All’s well. Tarin and I were given an assignment by the emperor. I can take you to her, if you like.”

  “Absolutely. Let me find some clothes.”

  Taban waited awkwardly on the porch, not having been invited inside, until Kipri emerged, swathed in a heavy cloak and wearing his most ordinary wig: the plain brown bouffant Philo had given him. “Where is she?”

  “I canna tell you because of our mission. But I can take you there if you let me cover your eyes.”

  Kipri stared at him, his face all angles and sharp shadows, for so long that Taban feared he was about to fly into a rage. Instead, to Taban’s complete and utter surprise, the eunuch threw his arms around him and hugged him fiercely.

  “There’s no way I can thank you enough for what you have done for Tarin. You keep her safe during her savant lessons and in the duel den. You keep her alive.” He pulled back and stared Taban in the eye.

  Taban was surprised to realize that he and the eunuch were of the same height. Kipri had always seemed so slender and willowy that Taban had assumed the Aklaa was taller.

  “I know you give her the one thing I cannot, and I won’t pretend that on some level, it doesn’t bother me. But we are all imperfect. My imperfections don’t matter to Tarin, and Tarin’s imperfections don’t matter to me. I think that’s why we need each other so much. I’m sorry that you didn’t get a choice in your den assignment. I hope you don’t mind too much that I’ve basically forced you to sleep with my woman for two years.”

  Taban coughed in surprise. “What?”

  A rare, genuine smile crossed Kipri’s face. “You don’t think I’m above pulling a few strings with the Minister of Information when it comes to making sure Tarin’s safe in her new duel den assignment, do you? Come now, I served under Philo for several years in the Kheerzaal, aside from the year I spent in Balanganam with him. I’ve picked up a few tricks.”

  Taban tried to shout down the thoughts clamoring in his head. “You said Philo arranged our assignments? I thought they were supposed to be a punishment.”

  Kipri nodded. “They were, originally. But Philo knew everything you did about the duelism book’s secrets—or near enough for practical purposes—and he knew how you felt after what happened to Bayan. He couldn’t help you overtly, but he did his best to make sure that you would all be safe and in strategic placements for his benefit. I simply made sure he was aware that Tarin would need your help to fulfill his goals for her. Why do you think the singers visit you so often?”

  Horning in on Dunfarroghans’ rightful chicanery, are we? Cheeky. “Oh, I don’t know. For our winning personalities?”

  Kipri tipped his head in respect. “He’s a sly one, Philo. If I hadn’t seen him risk his own life for the sake of the empire, I might worry that he was following in the footsteps and philosophy of Ignaas witten Oost.”

  Taban’s schooled his face to smoothness before his surprise could show, but he wondered whether Kipri was already aware of his and Tarin’s secret mission. If he was, did the emperor know it, or just Philo? The emper
or seems to be rubbing off on our dear Minister of Information, or maybe it is the other way around. Either way, I’m sure they’ll be very happy with each other. “Come, then, I don’t know how much time we have until the casters figure out where we’ve hidden this lovely piece of land, so if you want to see your girl tonight, you’d better step onto my fine magical disc.”

  He didn’t bother explaining that once Kipri saw whom he and Tarin were guarding, he couldn’t be let back out until certain things were resolved. It likely didn’t matter. Kipri would be in no hurry to leave Tarin, no matter how large an audience they had for their reunion.

  I canna wait to see the expression on Langlaren’s face when I fly into his bedchamber after this. At least he willna be hoping for a private reunion in a traitor’s office.

  Bend

  Bayan stood with one hand on the front door latch of his family home. Memories flooded his mind, happy and young and innocent: pushing Lailani into a paddy his father was flooding; racing a young, playful Timbool along the forest path; following his father along a raised road and trying to remember his every word as he waved his hands at this or that paddy and described a season’s worth of farming out of order. I was never destined to be a farmer, was I? I was only fooling myself—myself and my family.

  He slid the latch downward and let himself in. The large front room, which had always been bursting with people when he was a child, was empty at the moment. Bayan inhaled the old, familiar scents: the buttery yellow, sweet wax his mother used to smooth the worn floors, her arrangements of dried seerwine leaves and rice stalks, symbols of the farm’s prosperity and products. Food smells wafted in from the kitchen, and Bayan was reminded of his last meal from home, when Tala had brought him a plate laden with food created by his mother’s hands.

  He perched a hip on the corner of the large table, its surface flat and worn after decades of constant use. Mindo’s turned working for the sint into his own little business. I wonder what my sisters are up to. Probably learning to sew, weave, and negotiate with merchants.