The Four Forges

by Jenna Rhodes

  Too late, he understand Gilgarran’s plan, as nothingness took him.

  Chapter Four

  HE WOKE, STIFF AND hurting, in a gutter full of the effluvia of the city, nighttime stained by the sputter of oil torches and lamps, streaking the air with a dirty orange, sooty smoke. Slowly, Sevryn rolled over. He lay, free and awake, in the armpit of some town, somewhere. His senses assailed him, after that first quavering breath that told him he was alive. He smelled worse than the gutter, as if he’d been on a week-long drunk, pissed himself, and fallen into the waste headfirst. He levered himself into a sitting position, peering at himself in the dim light of the back alley, counting limbs, then digits. Everything seemed to be intact, although he had no reason to think it would be, not with the last memory he had, and there was not a part of his body that did not hurt.

  Having expected death, it could have been far worse.

  Sevryn rubbed his hands together, feeling heavy calluses that he did not remember, and then scrubbing one hand over the back of his head. His hair felt like a rat’s nest, nasty and matted and unkempt, but below it, he could probe and feel a sizable dent in his skull that awoke a piercing ache when he jabbed too hard. The injury did not seem all that recent, but the lancing throb through his head now made him groan and double over, vision blurring.

  He clutched at his temples, jaw clenched against the waves of nausea racking him, and the sour taste rising in his mouth. After long moments, he began to pant and slowly the nausea subsided. When he could lift his head, Sevryn put a hand to his left shoulder. Stiff yes, but nothing fresh there either. Healed, then. Some time had passed. How much? And where had he been, other than some place doing manual labor, and where was he now?

  He needed help. Help, money, shelter. Sevryn got to his feet, leaning heavily against the rough wooden side of a back alley building. He wouldn’t be taken back. He’d die first, this time. The very timbers he clung to stank, his nostrils flaring as new odors assaulted him, but he held to it for support anyway, crawling along the side to where the crooked street opened up a bit and light splintered in. He looked down. His clothes were little more than rags and he could not honestly say if he knew them for his or not, clothes he’d owned or stolen. His boots fit poorly, the sole half gone on one, with the other sewn sloppily back to the upper and near to falling off again. Those hadn’t been custom made, of that he could be certain, as his toes pinched uncomfortably and his heels chafed. He wore a cape that smelled of horse and might have begun as a saddle blanket. Sevryn ran his hand under it, holding it up to the illumination, examining it, then letting it drop into place. He tried to think, but the thoughts spun away from him like fallen leaves caught in a driving wind, swept away.

  Sevryn pushed on through the alleys, reaching a better part of town, cleaner by the smell of it, although he carried his own cloud of misery with him. Propped on the corner of a building, with muted sounds of laughter and talk reaching him through the wooden boards, he tried to gather his thoughts again as his head ceased to throb.

  Either Sevryn was leaning against a tavern, or his senses were no good at all. He could feel the warmth seeping through the cracks in the wood, hear the tones of congeniality within, smell the spilled ale on the floorboards and piss in the nearby gutter. Within a stride or two of aid, then, for Gilgarran had contacts all over the lands, but he hesitated. Where had he been . . . and for how long? He doubted he’d escaped soon after his capture. If Quendius had held him, had he broken? What had he revealed of his mentor, his training, what little he knew of Gilgarran’s motives and movements? Had he been let go just to be followed? No, he could not risk exposing Gilgarran’s network until he understood more of what had happened. He’d been kept alive for some purpose, and he was a liability until he knew why.

  Yet, as he trembled in the cold of the night, his body thin, scabbed, and scarred, he stood on the edge of being alive. He hated to have come this far, only to lose the battle. He pondered his options. Go in and beg or . . .

  “Hssst. Master, the game is on the move. He’s been drugged as yer askt and he’s a-comin’ yer way.” A ragged Dweller dodged out of the tavern alley ahead of him, and engaged in talk with a tall, lean shadow Sevryn hadn’t spotted before then. With a quiet hiss of his own, he leaned back out of view, watching.

  “It’s as you promised?” the shadow grumbled.

  “His pouch is near full. The innkeep stood him a few rounds, rich trader’s son that he is. Yer marked him well, yer did.”

  “Good.” A coin flipped through the air, metal catching the ambient light, shining as it spun to the eager fist snatching it out of the air. “Not a word of this.”

  “No, ser!” The Dweller lad dashed away, breath chugging through his sturdy frame, and the shadow scuffed his boots, readying his stance.

  Sevryn studied the mouth of the alley and the thief. Kernan, from his height and bulk. Galdarkan were far taller, elves as tall but wiry, and definitely not a Bolger. He wondered about the mark and decided profit and nothing else motivated the attack, but the thief was wary enough he’d had the target drugged first. He could speculate on that, but it seemed obvious enough to him, and the sound of an inn door being thrown open wide, wood sides crashing against the frame broke his thoughts. The boom sounded like thunder, bringing an echo of fear within him that he squelched as well as he could with a bit of surprise, and then Sevryn could hear a wave of laughter from inside. A figure reeled across the broken street, stumbled in the gutter, and Sevryn could hear the rattle of a weapon harness and belt as the drunkard headed their way. The mark mumbled to himself, words Sevryn couldn’t quite catch, and the man rounded the corner into their alleyway and began to fumble at his pants. An oddly stiff glint traced the leggings of his right pants leg, hidden by the darkness of night.

  The cutpurse struck, knife hilt in his fist, a sharp blow behind the mark’s ear. Shadows tumbled. The mark fell, not out but downed, and rolled in the dirt, grunting, trying to draw his sword and cursing at himself.

  “Bloody hand. Bloody elves and bloody hand!” He shimmied away on his back, out of range of another blow, as the thief tackled him and the two rolled about.

  Sevryn stepped in. He drew back his boot and kicked the thief in the back of the head as hard as he could. Bones snap-cracked and the thief went limp. The sole of his boot went its own way, as well, and a sudden draft shot through the remains of his footwear. Sevryn peeled the man off his intended victim, who looked up blearily, succumbing to the drink and drugs in his system, his mouth twisted about a curse.

  He looked at the man’s sword hand, skin black-purple and drawn tight over the structure of his bones, and Sevryn’s eyes narrowed. He’d not seen a wound healed like that before, but he knew who the drugged man had to be, a tale repeated in many a tavern. He brushed the sword out of the trader’s feeble hand as the man gave a howl of frustration.

  “Train your bloody other sword hand, then, fool, you’ve a strong arm for a shield and another hand to hold a blade. Act like the man you were born to be.” Sevryn leaned over, took the eating dagger from the other’s waistband, a fine piece of weaponry in its own right, and used it to cut away its master’s purse. The leather pouch jangled heavily in his palm.

  The trader sagged back onto the street, eyelids drooping. Sevryn leaned still closer, enunciating his words closely, piercingly, to be remembered. “And it’s this bloody Vaelinar who saved you.”

  The trader stared at him a moment, before his eyes rolled back into his skull and he lost all hearing.

  He stalked a pace or two to the cutpurse’s still form, and Sevryn looked the would-be thief over carefully. He should be sorry he’d killed him, but couldn’t find the mercy within him. He pulled off the dead man’s well-made boots. If not a fit, it was close enough. He’d have herb powder in them first, though, to sweeten the stink and kill off any bugs that came with them.

  Sevryn tucked the boots under his arm and jogged away, quickly, to a safe distance before letting out a shout and hail
that would attract attention. No sense letting the trader lie there as prey for someone else. He kept moving as the tavern door was flung open, amber light spilled out, and the street filled with curious onlookers.

  He weighed the purse in his hand. Quite a bit if he was any judge, and if he were in a town with a traders’ post, there had to be amenities somewhere as well—even if he must keep a low profile—baths, and an inn with door-latching rooms. Trotting through the back streets, he located a few places and kept circling, eventually pausing at the rear of a laundry. Inside, he could hear the women folding laundry that had been washed and dried during the day, and he could smell the bubbling cauldrons of hot soapy water, waiting for the next batch. He considered chancing a bath here for free in one of the said cauldrons but thought better of it. The water might scald him badly, and he had no wish to be found stealing a bath when he could pay for it. Clothes, however, were another matter.

  Squeezing through the back gate, he made his way into the storeroom where piles of dry clothes waited to be picked up. He found what he needed—pants, shirt, greatcoat—and slipped back out while the women gossiped and pinched one another over a recent marriage, a coming baby, and someone’s mean-tempered aunt, as if the lands had no greater concern. Perhaps they hadn’t, as far as the laundry drudges were concerned.

  He pried open his pouch. One gold crown, a handful of gold half crowns, and a wealth of silver ten pieces shone at him. He fished out a piece of ten, knowing it would pay for bath, barber, and silence. He hung the pouch around his neck, tucking it far inside his shirt, before making his way to the baths.

  Inside, he found plenty of hot water, herbed soap, an excellent attendant who promptly fetched a good barber, burned his clothes without comment, brought more herbs to treat the head and boot lice, and managed to bring a trencher with hot stew and a cold beer, all of which were handled before the dawn’s first light.

  He canvassed the streets by daylight, fleeting as a shadow himself, still aching. By lane and sign, he realized he was in Brelin, a small backwater far from the mountains in which he and Gilgarran had come to ruin. The day warmed, the sun wan yet still strong despite the season. He paused as he came upon a fairer part of the city, and listened to the sound of children laughing.

  No matter where he’d roamed, that sound seemed the same. It warmed him as the sunlight could not, and he paused to bask in it, letting it wash over him like the soothing waters of the bath he’d found late last eve. He could hear the slap, slap of a jumping rope and the stomp of shoed feet and boots in rhythm with the laughter, a few jeers, and the clap of hands now and then. Sevryn pushed closer, the corner of his mouth upturned as he listened.

  He could hear them chanting now, the girls, underscored by the voice of a lad or two, as they danced and jumped to the skipping rope.

  “Four forges dire

  Earth, Wind, Water, and Fire,

  You skip low

  And I’ll jump higher.

  One for thunder

  By lands torn asunder

  Two for blood

  By mountains over flood.

  Three for soul

  With no place to go . . .”

  He bolted into their midst as his body went cold and grabbed the nearest girl by her elbow. Their chant stopped immediately, and they stared at him with big eyes. One or two darted away. He fought for breath, forcing it in and out of his icy chest.

  “What is that you chant? Where did you hear it? Who taught it to you?”

  The Kernan girl he’d captured stared at him, one eye brimming with an unshed tear, and scuffed her shoe upon the ground. “Why . . . you did, sir.”

  He dropped her arm, stepping back in shock. “I . . . what?”

  “Don’t you remember? You taught us . . .” She hung back, and then, as one, the remaining children turned and raced away from him, leaving nothing behind but the tangle of their dropped rope on the dusty street.

  Sevryn put the palms of his hands to his eyes and let out a broken cry. He did not remember it, if he’d ever known it, but he forced it back into his skull now, and then stood, shaking. Something he’d known and could not have forgotten, he’d put into rhyme. Something he had never wanted to lose, and yet . . . had. He felt the need for another bath, healing, cleansing, and turned about, trembling so hard he could barely make his way.

  He did not know what he’d known, once. But he could not forget it again.

  He left the baths a second time a far cleaner and even more thoughtful man, the slender youth he’d been at Gilgarran’s side grown to manhood and no longer able to pass as a callow lad. In idle talk overheard as he soaked, recuperating, another shock stabbed through him. It had been nearly eighteen years since they had made their fatal journey. He’d been lost and was just now being found. He would have mourned those lost years, but that he savored finding life again, and he’d brought with him a mystery that he needed to solve.

  Chapter Five

  721-723 AE

  STAYING IN BACK ALLEYS suited him. He found cleaner, nicer streets to frequent, and swapped out clothes for when he traveled them, but many interesting things often dropped in alleys that couldn’t be found in other parts of the city. For instance, that was how Sevryn had met Gilgarran.

  Crouched behind a bakery sifting through troughs for burned crusts of bread and whatever else he could scrounge, cast aside by his parent, he’d been living on the streets for as long as he could remember. Quick-fingered but savvy, he stole only the worthless, avoiding guards and guardhouses. Sometimes he ran messages and gambling chits for meals or even a silver piece now and then, but he didn’t earn much that way because he wouldn’t join a street gang.

  Not that a gang would have him if his lineage had been discovered, but his ears were barely pointed, and his stormy gray eyes showed none of the multijeweled qualities of most Vaelinars. Only his age could betray him, for he matured slowly, having inherited at least the potential for the long life span rumored of them. Some said they lived a full handful of centuries, others said they were near immortal. If the gangs were not so interested in themselves, they might have noticed that he stayed young, far younger than they, as they grew older. Stockier and shorter, too, than the high elves, he had spent most of his life successfully hiding from the scorn held for Vaelinars or half bloods among the true blood of Kerith. No one had a use for a half blood. Vaelinars, because the Talent for strange powers and magic rarely passed through, tainting their heritage, and the others because of their hatred for the invaders and sometime slavers. Never mind that the Vaelinars had brought new ways of doing things that were beneficial to all. They had also brought Godlike powers, and hatred, and war. Better to be dead than to be thought elven. Or, as the Kernan proverb went, “Better Death should knock on your door than a Vaelinar.”

  He found a place for himself as he finally grew into a young man’s stature at the traders’ stables whenever the caravans coming in had fork-horns pulling the carts. The immense bovines had their racks sawn off and capped, but that made them uneasy and difficult to handle. They could no longer defend themselves as they’d grown used to, and in an animal way, that drove them berserk from time to time. Though devoid of horns, their weight and hooves could be extremely dangerous and their ill temper kept the stable boys far from them, afraid of being crushed or trampled. He could move among them, talking, petting, soothing them into settling down to be groomed and harnessed, or unharnessed and corralled. It proved a steady and legitimate way of earning coin. Along the way, as he occasionally saved up to visit a tavern, he found his ability to soothe could keep him out of other troubles as well, avoiding recalcitrant drunks and bullies. Occasionally, though, when the seasons changed, fork-horns would be replaced on the trails by mules, and he would lose his income for a while, relegated to scrounging from the alleys to stretch out his meager savings. He thought to train his weapon skills, to be hired as a caravan guard when he was grown enough. Traders hired small, private armies of guards and kept them well.

/>   It was on such a raw and hungry day between seasons and work that Gilgarran fell on him from an upper story window. Knocked to the ground, Sevryn lay flat under the man and only knew that trouble had hit him hard. He twisted out from under, immediately falling into his soothing voice to scramble away before his attacker’s attackers fell on them both in pursuit. The gentleman wore fine clothes, and a mask, and good weapons, and everything spelled awful trouble.

  “I’m no one to bother with. I’m just going to walk away and everything will be fine,” he started, as he clambered to his feet, spreading his hands wide in supplication.

  “Velk,” spat the man. He rolled, knocking Sevryn’s feet out from under him, and pounced, kneeing him and grabbing him by the ear. “Who are you to use a Voice on me?”

  “N-nobody,” Sevryn stammered as he panted for air. The knee on his chest kept him pinned, and then the gentleman pulled at him.

  “Get up. Which way out, before we’re chased.”

  His ear pinched painfully between fingers that felt as hard as steel, Sevryn carefully got to his feet and jabbed with his thumb.

  “On, then, and don’t think you can outrun me. Quickly!”

  The grip on his ear released. Sevryn broke for freedom as if a pot of boiling oil had been tossed at him, and the master ran after, effortlessly, right on his heels. He dodged throughout the town, keeping to the shadows, desperate but not so heedless as to give his secrets away to anyone. Anyone that is, but the man trailing him. They crossed into the derelict section, on the town’s far edge, where not even the desperate lived. Sevryn took him to his dodge hole, a cavern at the edge of an abandoned warehouse, deserted because of fire, with the timbers left creaking and swaying unreliably. It still stank of its ruination, a heavy, choking reek of devastation by flame.

  Sevryn squatted on his heels in the corner of the lean-to, and looked at the gentleman who, at least, had to catch his breath. Behind Sevryn was a rotting half barrel which led to a tunnel through the precarious debris of the warehouse itself, an escape route for him that any sane person would think about a number of times before going after him if Sevryn made a break for it.