Prodigal Steelwielder (Seals of the Duelists Book 3)

by Jasmine Giacomo

  Jaap’s jaw sagged for a moment. “Potioneers may not occupy an exalted position in Waarden culture, but they are essential to our way of life. Aside from that, how can you not see the massive folly in mixing elemental magic with the potions that excite it? The very notion is incomprehensibly nonsensical. I utterly cannot let them go. As for the eunuchs, they have no part in this discussion.”

  “Bhattara forfend that your eunuchs have parts, Sire.” Bayan held out his hands, accepting the inevitable. “You offer me no duelists and no potioneers. Yet you know what we’re capable of. With whom shall you defend your empire if I should bring my hexes against your brand new Kheerzaal?”

  As one, the imperial duelists stepped forward. Bayan encased them in pillars of amber without taking his eyes from Jaap’s. His threat hung in the air for a long, crystalline moment.

  “Or if you prefer, I could simply effect a bloodless takeover.” Bayan flicked his gaze toward the silver pillars Jaap had admired earlier, and at the base of each one, a hexmagic copy of Jaap voorde Helderaard appeared, identical down to the last stitch of clothing.

  Jaap’s eyes bugged at the sight of his duplicates. “This is madness. What have you done? You cannot replace me!”

  Bayan smiled. “What do you say? Shall we have them fight it out to see which will be the most dominant, the most worthy to take your place?”

  The imperial duplicates all came to awareness at the same moment. They spotted the true Jaap and then each other. Identical rictuses of disbelief and outrage spread across their features, and they shouted and gestured at each other. Soon, shoves replaced words and fists flew.

  Bayan slid his eyes to the emperor, who stood unmolested but in utter shock. “I can make them do absolutely anything, anywhere, at any time. I could destroy your reputation with nothing more than a pair of sheep, a few carrots, and some aromatic oil.”

  “You wouldn’t dare… You wouldn’t dare. Bayan, you can’t.” His last word was faint with desperation.

  With a flick of his mind, Bayan dismissed the wrestling emperors, and the receiving chamber fell silent once again. “Set us free, and I give you my word that neither I nor any of mine will ever interfere with your empire. That’s not what we want. But this empire has treated duelists and potioneers with gross unfairness for centuries. I have the power to stop you, and I will use it. But I offer you this one chance, first. Agree to my terms. Give me autonomy over the Academy, its students, and their futures. And then we may part here amicably, as friends. Not equals, but friends.”

  Jaap’s eyes were still wild. “Not equals? Ah, I see. How ironic, that you should adopt, in the end, the philosophy first posited by your enemy, the late and glorious witten Oost.”

  Movement flickered on the far side of the room, but Bayan kept his gaze trained on the emperor. All options were still open. “Witten Oost had some good ideas but terrible execution. I don’t possess the fanatic loyalty that he showed to you and the Waarden Empire in his last moments. He sacrificed his life to save your empire. Once, I was willing to do the same. But not any more. Now, my life is worth more to me than anything you could possibly offer me, and my will is strong enough to countermand any of your decisions. You murder my family, I can bring them back. You start a war, I can end it. You punish anyone for helping me, and I can simply replace your punishers with copies that believe as I do. I can remake your world. But all I want is freedom. You choose how I take it.”

  “You think you can just walk in my door—”

  “Roof, actually.”

  “—and throw your demands in my face? Do you expect me to bow at your feet? I am Emperor Jaap voorde Helderaard. This is my land, my palace, my empire. I will not listen to any more of your insanity.”

  The emperor turned to stride back toward his throne, and Bayan backed away a few steps. The raggedy figure that had crept in through Bayan’s portal and hid in behind the throne now lunged forward, filthy hands outstretched for the emperor’s throat. Completely taken aback, Jaap lunged aside in the nick of time, stumbling off the steps and sprawling on the tiles. Bayan grabbed the unkempt stranger with a band of Wind and held him fast, though the man growled and cursed under his breath, straining to reach the emperor.

  “Do you recognize this man?” he asked Jaap. “He is a steel merchant named Isos Sarantis. He orchestrated the Nunaa assassination attempt three years ago. After you were dead and your brother became a puppet emperor to Karkhedon, Isos could simply waltz in and claim the entire steel goods market, offering everything from kitchen knives to horseshoes. After I defeated his assassins, he fled eastward to the Corona. He’s been hiding in Yl Senyecho’s court and whispering words of power to the emperor’s consort. No one knew she was a rebel sint in disguise. She stole his dreams of revenge and did her best to hand the Waarden Empire to her beloved Balti. Isos has spent the last season in a Corona dungeon, going mad with grief and thwarted vengeance.”

  “Why is he here now?” Despite his calm exterior, the emperor’s voice shook as he eyed Isos.

  “Everyone deserves a chance to face the person who ruined his life.”

  “But I’ve never met this man before. How can I possibly have ruined his life?”

  Bayan smiled. “You misunderstand. He has ruined yours, Sire. If he had not tried to kill you, I would not have stepped forward to thwart him. I wouldn’t have become hungry for more strength and skill, wouldn’t have sought out savantism. You see where this leads us.”

  Jaap’s expression went flat. “I wouldn’t have banished you. And my empire wouldn’t have turned against me for it.”

  Bayan nodded, then tipped his head toward Isos and backed away a few more steps. Isos threw himself, growling, at Jaap and tackled him to the floor. Though the man was not healthy, his madness and rage empowered him. Jaap had several inches of height on him, though, and a longer reach. As he rolled Isos onto his back, he growled, “You will not assist me, Bayan?”

  Bayan shook his head. “I would have been willing to assist you as an ally, Jaap, but we failed to achieve an understanding. I wish you luck with your vengeance. You’re going to need it.”

  Bayan opened the doors with Woodcasting and backed out, then sealed them. Desperate cries, screams, and grunts issued from the other side.

  A familiar patter of sandals slapped closer to Bayan from behind. “Philo. How nice to see you.” Bayan turned and took in the sight of the hefty Minister of Information. Despite his lofty station, Philo still wore the standard raiment color for eunuchs, his cream silken tunic covered with a lacy tabard that bore three pearl buttons across his broad chest. His wig of choice was also a frothy cream studded with more pearls, towering above his head in a concoction that resembled spun sugar. “My dear boy, what is that sints-awful racket? Who is in there? What is happening?”

  Bayan fixed his former sponsor with a direct look. “Isos Sarantis and Emperor Jaap are trying to kill each other.”

  Philo’s blue eyes widened in shock, and he tried to dart past Bayan to reach the doors. “What? Why aren’t you stopping it?”

  Bayan caught Philo in a soft net of air, returning him and his scrabbling sandals to their original position. “I don’t want to stop it, Philo. And I’m not going to let anyone else stop it, either. Jaap and I failed to reach the agreement I was hoping for.”

  A bloodcurdling cry issued from behind Bayan. Philo’s eyes snapped to the doors, and a whimper escaped his mouth. “What… what did you ask for?”

  Bayan held up a hand and willed a tightly rolled scroll onto his palm. Philo snatched it and snapped it open. His plump lips moved silently while his eyes scanned the document’s sections and requirements. “You can’t be serious. He’ll never sign this.”

  Bayan shrugged one shoulder. “The fight behind me would seem to prove you correct. Now, if you will excuse me, I do need to return to the Academy and assist with our own rebuilding projects.”

  He attempted to step past the eunuch, but Philo grasped his sleeve. “Wait, please! Please, you can
’t let him die. He is my emperor. I have served him all my life, all of it that matters. Please, Bayan. I’ve never asked you for a single favor, but now, I beg you. Give me my emperor’s life.”

  Bayan paused, considering. Several deep, resonating thuds reached his ears from within the receiving chamber.

  Philo’s head whipped toward the sealed doors, and his breath came in desperate gasps. “Please.”

  Bayan nodded. “Then you sign it, Philo. You have the authority to sign new laws into existence in the event of the emperor’s death.”

  “But, but he’s not dead yet, is he? I can still hear…”

  Bayan’s eyes flashed. “Until you open those doors, you won’t really know for sure. Sign the contract, and I will unseal the doors so that you can find out whether you are right. Do we have an understanding, Philo?”

  Sweat formed at the edges of Philo’s wig. “I need a pen.”

  Bayan crafted one for him, and Philo snatched it. He pressed the scroll against the nearest wall and scribbled his name at the bottom. Bayan rested a hand against his shoulder. “You have always been a loyal man, Philo. I respect that, and I respect you, even if we don’t agree anymore. I wish you well.”

  He turned and strode across the tiled foyer. With a snap, he shattered the doors behind him then tunneled through reality back to his new home.

  He stepped through the portal onto the fresh green grass of the new Academy grounds. The black ring snapped shut behind him, cutting off Philo’s screams for a chanter.

  Steps

  A score of days whirled past before the world slowed down long enough for Bayan to take stock. The First Singer arrived to offer her guarded felicitations on his new status as her equal. Tala accompanied her and let him and Calder know that Sanaala—and all of her copies—had been lost in the conflagration that consumed the campus. Bayan merely nodded—so many fates were worse than death, and Sanaala had had the misfortune of experiencing one of them dozens of times.

  He visited his family farm. A meeting with his father and Mindo resulted in the departure of the red sint from Gamay’s runrock pillar. Mindo’s petitioners were devastated, but no one—not the emperor, and certainly not a paranoid little godling—was going to hold Bayan’s family hostage. The sint retreated peacefully to the foothills beneath the Temple of Ten Thousand Harmonies, and Mindo returned to his duties on the farm. But Bayan knew the red sint wasn’t done with him yet. It would bide its time. And so would Bayan.

  When he returned to the new Academy campus, situated in the valley where it had been founded, everything seemed both strange and perfectly familiar, as if that was always how it was meant to be.

  The campus’s valley layout had been completed, and all vital buildings had been constructed by eager, if not accurate, duelists interested in becoming trade duelists. Bayan stood in the doorway of his shiny new Headmaster’s office and looked down the valley with a smile. The thought that duelists had a choice of careers for the first time in history was a curious one. They would no longer serve a score of years in the duel dens unless they chose to, not when there was so much work to be done around the empire—work made easier with magic as the main tool in the box.

  Bayan waited impatiently for Eward to return from his latest emissary mission, this time to Gallenglaas. A small enclave of trade duelists was based in the provincial capital of Baghanir, and Bayan hoped that Eward, with his irrepressible eagerness, could convince some of them to mentor the students interested in taking up their career. It was a convenient side effect that Eward’s recruitment around the empire resulted in word of the Academy’s newfound independence from imperial control spreading like Firewhirl spells.

  Tarin landed beside Bayan with a puff of air. “Flame Instructor Tarin reporting that our new Flame arena is decorated and polished. We just finished putting down a nice thick layer of runrock pebbles, the smooth ones like you have in Balanganam, not those old, scratchy ones we used to have.” She nodded decisively. “I’ll make sure the new students know how poshy they have it. In fact, you should make the difference between then and now something that de Rood—I mean Instructor Theo—teaches every new class.”

  Bayan grinned. “Leave a message with my secretary. I’ll make sure she tells our new history teacher you said so.”

  Tarin snorted. “Kiwani’s going to agree with me, and you know it. And I’ll tell her you called her a secretary. Good luck sitting down for the next score of days after she spikes your arse.”

  “Speaking of new students, do you want a hand in the recruiting, or do you want to spend your time here on campus adjusting to your new role?”

  Tarin arched an eyebrow. “The Mistress of Flame does not recruit. Just tell the potential students that I’m here. They should come to me. And if they don’t, I’ll hunt them down.”

  Bayan let an easy smile slip across his features, but the darker turn in Tarin’s personality of late concerned him. Encountering witten Oost again had broken some festering imbalance loose in her soul—a problem she didn’t seem to notice.

  Taban had, but he didn’t share Bayan’s concern, content to believe that she’d eventually balance out again, as long as she had him and Kipri in her life. Though he hadn’t taken a teaching role, Taban had already claimed an indispensable position on campus. “You won’t mind if I send Taban out for recruiting now and again, then?”

  Her eyebrows rose, pale red in the sunlight. “Taban? I’m sure I don’t know anyone by that name. And I believe he wants to be called Master Solahan, High Merchant of the Duelist Academy. So, yes, drag him away all you like. But I warn you, it will only give him an opportunity to extend his information network. If you don’t watch him, he’s going to become some unholy combination of Ignaas witten Oost and Philo.”

  Bayan’s darkness met and more than matched Tarin’s. “Exactly so.”

  Tarin shifted to lean against Bayan’s wide door frame. “Was it wise to let Aleida return home?”

  Bayan gave her an odd look. “She is with child.”

  “I refer to her mental condition. She’s… different. Off squint. Not herself anymore. Bringing Murchadh back changed her on some deep level. Don’t you see it?”

  Bayan raised his eyebrows. “Of course I see it. That’s why I let her go home.”

  “And you don’t think that’s too far away?”

  “I’m not sure the students will understand her. In fact, seeing what she’s becoming could frighten them. I need more time to understand her, so that I can explain our journey more clearly to the students. I can’t see where she’s gone yet, and I’m only a half a step behind her.” If that.

  Tarin was looking at him funy. “Again in Waarden, please.”

  Bayan licked his lips. “Just a theory I have. If it looks like it’s going to be accurate, I’ll let you know.” He stepped down to the grass then looked up. Though invisible to his eyes, his magic told him the sky barrier was firmly in place. The spell was new, inspired by the cetechupes: multiple duelists around campus sharing the same identical hex avatar, created during a hex bond. This campus will never fall again.

  “I need to return to the Flame arena and assign my students their next round of tasks. Do you have any messages you want me to deliver while I’m out?”

  Bayan focused on Tarin once more. “Have Tala coordinate with Odjin in arranging transport to campus for potioneers. He’s told me that many of the younger ones want to learn more about savantism, and several are ready to sign up for Odjin’s alternative casting classes.”

  Tarin vanished in a swirl of smiles and flame, and Bayan decided to take a perfectly ordinary stroll down the campus using nothing but his own two feet. As he walked, he felt the impact of each step bearing him slowly yet inexorably toward his goal. High in the sky to his left lay the space the Academy had recently occupied. It existed only in his memory now, and he would never walk its paths and tunnels again.

  A memory caught at his mind. My first night in a solitary. The moon was full, and I had one of the b
est views in the world from my tiny, open-air prison. I thought I could just step out into the night and stride across the world. I thought I was the angriest person in the world. Now that younger me seems idealistic and hopeful. This new world is darker, but not because of my anger. I have leapt across its face, passing thousands of leagues with a single step. But I haven’t found peace, only more conflict, more greed, more hate. Was I ever really just a young farm boy? I used to have dreams of greatness, but now the life I used to live is the one that feels like the dream.

  His amble across the grass came to an abrupt halt as Kiwani appeared in a flash of black before him. Her eyes glittered with dark promise and mischief. “You have a visitor, Headmaster. You’re going to want to see him.”

  Bayan followed her back through her portal to the new Hall of Seals at the mouth of the valley—Eward’s idea for a welcoming gesture to visitors and potential students alike. They stepped through onto the great seal, faithfully recreated in gems and gold on the broad courtyard before the front entrance. As he and Kiwani crossed its glittering surface, she said, “I don’t know why you wanted to save this one element out of all the aspects of the old campus.”

  He took her hand and squeezed it. “I didn’t do it for my benefit. People need symbols.”

  Kiwani tipped her head toward him in a gesture of acquiescence. “If that’s what you want. It is your campus, after all.”

  Bayan willed the doors open. “You don’t think of this as your campus?”

  She paused and met his eyes. “This may be your campus, Bayan, darling. But that’s not what it means to me. You dedicate yourself to the students, present and future, that will walk through your doors. You want to make sure they’re treated fairly, as you never were, as none of us were. That’s your goal. I support you in it, and I see that it needs to be done. But it’s not my goal. It never has been, and it never will be.”

  A faint frisson of worry blew through Bayan’s soul. His hexmates had once been so close. “What is it you want, then?”