Kelrob fell to his knees and looked away, waiting for the cry to become a blood-choked gurgle. Instead Jacobson ran out of air, his bellow dying into a wheeze. The sword-tip hovered over his throat, barely scratching, drawing a tiny line of blood; with a strangled cry Jacobson drew back the blade and plunged again, but to no avail. His arms trembled with a foreign power, keeping the death-blow at bay.
Kelrob watched in rapt amazement as Jacobson tried a third time, a fourth, his arms shaking more violently with each attempt. At last the man burst into a boom of wretched laughter and cast his sword to the ground. Blood dribbled from four minor scrapes on his neck; yet even as Kelrob watched the wounds dried and faded to faint pearlescent scars.
Jacobson laughed himself into into a fit of wracking coughs. At last the attack subsided, and he retrieved his sword, carefully cleansing the blade with one of the steaming towels so gracious supplied by Lord Azumana’s staff. “Well,” he said to Kelrob, who still perched on his knees in stunned silence, “that’s that, I suppose. I couldn’t slay myself with drink, and now the sword has failed me.” Reaching up, he prodded the slashes to his neck. “Sealed right up. Barely a drop wasted. I’m a prisoner in my own flesh, lad. No matter how I rattle the bars, he’ll sustain me.” Raising his sword aloft, Jacobson eyed it for any lingering blemish, then slid it soundly into its sheath.
Kelrob pulled himself erect, vaguely aware that he had knelt in a small plot of freshly-planted jasmine sprigs. “You would have died,” he said stupidly, his mind’s eye locked into a blinding replay of Jacobson’s first contrite stab.
Jacobson cast him a disparaging glance. “That was the idea. Sorry you had to see such a thing, but understand I wanted to die cleanly and quickly. ‘Tis a fate I’ve long intended for myself, but every time I’ve placed the blade against my throat or over the beat of my heart I’ve stopped myself, laid it aside unblooded and thirsting. It’s true cowardice, plain and simple; I want to die but can’t stand the thought of it. Until now.” His hand lowered as he spoke, caressing the pommel of his thwarted blade. “I finally had the will, the courage, to end it. Might have even absolved a few sins in the process, ridding the world of this demon. But alas, my hand is stayed.”
Kelrob cleared his throat and spoke with the utmost care, struggling to conceal the trembles racing along his skinny frame. “You’re not a coward,” he said. “If you didn’t have the will to kill yourself, it was simply because you still have a will to live. There’s no weakness in such a desire.”
Jacobson’s lips curled, barely visible through the mouth-slit of the mask. “I thought it would do me good to become a broken man. Understand I’d exhausted all other possibilities, though I suppose I could have become some bold and bloated captain if I hadn’t tired of all the endless blood and shit-shoveling that goes along with war. You know, of course, that all the noble-and-heroic rhetoric is complete horse manure. War is war, plain and simple. It makes beasts out of men, which is why I preferred fighting on the Barrier to playing my part in the pathetic martial games the city-states stage in order to kill off chaff and drive up revenue. At least on the Barrier you’re fighting something real, something that’s already a beast, so becoming a beast yourself to face it doesn’t seem like such a horrific thing.” A twist came into Jacobson’s voice, a submerged sob or a chuckle, Kelrob wasn’t certain which. The man sat in silence for a moment before he looked up and spread his hands wide, as if encompassing a theoretical landscape.
“The Aks come like ants, lad, gray of skin and black of eye, crawling across the desert-plain and up the very roots of the Ilarks to hurl themselves to certain death with joyful screams on their lips. This sword,” he patted the weapon at his side, “has slain a thousand men, if men you can call them. And their women, and children, who come ravening alongside them. I’ve kept it these many years with the intention of finally using it to spill my own blood, to seal this wretched weapon and somehow make amends. But cowardice, as I said, has always stayed my hand. I deserve to die, I’m certain of it, but I do want, desire, need to live. A conundrum which appears to have now been taken completely out of my control. My own damn fault for ever hesitating.”
Kelrob listened intently. He had never seen a man impaled on a sword, had never seen an Ak outside of the few bodies preserved for display at the Rookery, floating perpetually in the yellow murk of formaldehyde. Even so, he had never been completely swayed by the grandiose depictions of Barrier-service to be found in art and treatise, instead perceiving it as grim and foul work for mercenary and Taskmaster alike, though truly necessary and truly noble, performed by stoic-faced men who hewed at their enemies out of gravest necessity. Few men born in the Rolling Lands chose service, instead laboring at the farmer or vintner’s trade; prior to meeting Jacobson Kelrob had conversed directly with only a handful of veterans, most of them sons of noble birth who had entered the fray as captains. For years he had wondered at the term ‘horde’, tried to imagine the primal pulse of fifty-thousand bodies moving in a deadly wave across the Dry Lands, but the omnipresent war had seemed always distant from his family’s peaceful fief, where even interguild conflicts were kept to a minimum and the hiring of personal mercenaries was frowned upon. Kelrob’s father had told him when he was very young that this was due to their homeland’s stock-and-trade: fine wine. The guild-lords had learned long ago that disrupting Thevin’s only steady supply of libation was bad for business, worse for their kept armies. As such the Rolling Lands had enjoyed several centuries of relative peace, enlivened only by the occasional skirmish, and never by Ak incursion. That the Aks had breached as far as Tannigal was a recent thing, though they had long haunted the westernmost reaches of the Umberwood; Kelrob wondered suddenly if the defenses were weakening, or the Aks growing more cunning. He imagined war coming to his peaceful corner of the world, war without the ordered reason and theatricality of guild clashes, and he shuddered, a shadow passing over his face. “What now?” he said to Jacobson, plaintively, a child’s helpless question. He raised his eyes, stared at the mended wounds on the big man’s neck.
Jacobson shrugged his shoulders, sighed. “We dance to the tune of the piper,” he said. “I mean to win my flesh back, even if it is only to slay it. Though I feel cleansed, lad, almost clean inside...I meant to take my life just now. That this creature stopped me makes little difference. The sacrifice was truly and wholly offered. In a way it was made.” Jacobson reached up to caress the mask as he spoke, his fingers digging at one almond eye-slit. “By hook or by crook, I’ll feel the wind on my face again. What happens after that will be yet another whim of the world, I’m certain; but by all means, let’s get started on this ridiculous quest.”
Kelrob blinked, then exhaled, sliding down to sit on the fountain’s lip. His head was getting dizzy again. “I think you are basically a good man,” he said. “Certainly you’re pragmatic.”
“When a man isn’t allowed to end his own life, he is truly a slave. To scream and wail about it would be counterproductive. And no, I’m not a good man. No man is a good man. The good man is a pesky myth, and a boring one.” Jacobson sighed and turned to inspect the hewn wisteria, which was sending up a near-choking cloud of perfume. “Pity about the flowers. I think the rich are right addlebrained with their wealth, but I’ll admit the garden is very pretty. You say this Lord Azumana collects instruments?”
“Yes. The conservatory is of considerable size, the collection quite impressive. I’ve seen it before, though I’ll have to convince him to grant us access. Lord Azumana is as particular about his treasures as he is his flowers.”
Jacobson snorted a quick laugh. “I’m sure that he is. Anyone who owns this much must be fraught with worry. Can’t imagine how he sleeps nights.”
As if on cue the glass doorway to the arboretum slid open. A pair of servants entered, one male and one female, dressed in opulent finery: satin trousers, linen tunics dyed with subtle shades, soft gem-encrusted boots that whispered ag
ainst the stone pathway. They were Bergir and Kisha Thalit, Azumana’s sibling heralds; snapping their feet together they called out the name and honorifics of their lord in sharp unison. Kelrob rose from the lip of the fountain and motioned for Jacobson to follow suit, the mage straightening his spine and running a quick, uncertain hand through his filthy hair. Thankfully Lord Azumana seemed little concerned with anyone else’s appearance; the lord swept in behind his heralds like a vast varicolored butterfly, the layered fall of his satin robes billowing artfully at every step. Quickly he strode to Kelrob, bowed, and taking the mage’s unwounded hand laid a delicate kiss on his reddened knuckles.
“Kelrob,” he breathed, in a light fragrant voice. “So good to see you safe and sound. We’ve been horribly worried about you these past days, and now, now!, the whole city is under siege, though from whom I have no idea. Simply dreadful, all of it; are you well? Have you eaten? Is there anything I can provide for your comfort?”
Lord Azumana was a middle-aged man, his skin the dusky reddened hue of the southerly-dwelling Jeneni. His eyes were bright black beads, constantly darting, and his fingers were long and thin, bedecked in a moebius of glittering rings. Endless hours of scribbling in ledger-books had worn those fingers to an intrinsic hardness, a knotty, withered aspect that no ablution or skin-moisturizing tincture could offset; thus the coating of jewelry. He was tall for his people, almost as towering as Jacobson, though his body was lean and sharp, the aspect of a well-honed bird of prey. He wore a thin black beard just beginning to show threads of white at the immaculately-trimmed verges, and his lips were full and vividly painted in what was assuredly the most current ragingly popular hue in the Seven Cities. Kelrob had known the lord for most of his life, had been a guest in his house a dozen times in the past decade, but he still felt uneasy around the man. Lord Azumana often adopted the guise of the fool and the fop, dressing himself with shameless opulence and frequently hosting lavish parties that Kelrob had always been forbidden from attending. It was, however, a mere guise, a mask he donned to conceal his true predatory nature. Legendary for his keen (and often ruthless) business prowess, the good lord had accumulated untold wealth in the past fifteen years, raising his family from second-rate spice brokers to one of the most powerful blood-monopolies in the midlands. Kelrob’s family had done well by his acumen in turn, though Kelrob’s father often expressed in private his misgivings over Azumana’s questionable, often cutthroat business practices.
“Thank you, but I need nothing,” Kelrob said, willing his voice into a well-bred, urban cadence. He was surprised to discover how readily Jacobson’s country-inflected tongue had warped his dialect. Stepping forward, he bowed formally to the lord. “You are most gracious to admit us in this dire moment. We were nearly killed in the streets, barely made it past the guards at the gate.”
Lord Azumana’s eyes widened. “There are Aks free in the city? Impossible! We heard the explosions earlier, but I thought it was just more of that dreadful artillery the Torlandian troops peppered us with last year, before the last round of treaties. I had a migraine for three months.” The lord shivered, and looked to his heralds. “Bergir, go tell the household that Aks have breached the outer perimeter. Go quickly!”
“Not Aks,” Kelrob said, causing the male herald to avert his first hasty step and stumble. “Men of the garrison. They secured a store of powder from the city reserves and turned it on Tannigal. The Isdori consulate was the first building to fall. Haven’t you looked out a window, your lordship?”
Lord Azumana shook his head, his glance for the first time straying out the curved bay of windows to the cityscape beyond. “No. I was busy brokering a deal with Lord Halion, and you know how stubborn he can be. We heard the explosions, as I said, but I really thought nothing of it; warfare is no uncommon thing here, more’s the pity. Did you say the consulate tower has fallen?”
Without waiting for Kelrob’s response, Azumana crossed to the edge of the arboretum. He scanned the fuming cityscape, and his festooned shoulders drooped slightly in dismay. “I see. It is a most serious situation. The men of the garrison have wrought this, you say? Churlish, ungrateful beasts! I can only hope our own House-guards haven’t been similarly corrupted.” The merchant-lord watched the city for a moment in silence, his long fingers tugging at his gray-rimed beard. “I am glad at least to see that our protective enclosure is still functioning,” he said at last, his voice betraying only the faintest quaver. “Bergir, go now and appraise the household. They know what to do.”
The herald bowed, and, with a suspicious glance at Kelrob and Jacobson, departed the arboretum. Kisha remained, her posture rigid, eyes focused steadily on her master. Kelrob noted a curved sword hung in the sash at her side, ringed by a cluster of throwing daggers and what appeared to be a flintlock pistol, one of the most recent lethal innovations to emerge from the Taskmasters’ field tests. He nodded to her, but she paid him no mind; not once in ten years had they spoken beyond formalities.
Lord Azumana steepled his fingers against his chest, a flicker of fear evident beneath his solicitous smile. “My dear Kelrob, your timing is unfortunate indeed. We expected you fully four days ago. What happened to delay you on your journey?” As he spoke he glanced at Jacobson, who stood at rigid attention beside Kelrob, face lowered in deference but also to conceal the mask. “The servants appraised me of your...bodyguard, is it? I was expecting you to arrive in the company of Salinas Kanoth. I even had the suites in the west wing opened and aired for his pleasure.”
The vision of Salinas’s arrow-pierced body flashed though Kelrob’s mind. “I was compelled to part company with Taskmaster Salinas over a personal matter,” the mage said tersely. “I also, through a related misadventure, was deprived of my chromox.” He raised his bandaged hand, leaving the details in very deliberate shadow.
Lord Azumana let out a small moan at the news of Kelrob’s deprivation. “A pity,” he said, fingers toying with his myriad rings. “A true pity. This madness would be much more comfortably endured with a magister at our side.”
I am a magister! Kelrob nearly blurted. Instead he nodded faintly, his cheeks flushing with shame. Without his ring he was little more than useless, with no experience of combat and excessively minimal training in arms, even for one of his class. He had been so long wedded to the chromox, so long it its service, that he had fallen into obsolescence. “Where I can be of little help, Jacobson can compensate. He’s a trained warrior, a veteran of the Barrier. I hired him on the road to be my guide and protector in a time of severe difficulty, and he has proven faithful on both points.”
Lord Azumana’s lips curved downwards. “A country-commoner, then? I hope he at least has a guild affiliation.”
Kelrob’s teeth ground together faintly. “He does not.”
“Free-lance? Really, Kelrob, with your means you could have done better. I won’t even bother asking if you have a binding contract with the man — such a thing is impossible if he has no proper affiliation.” Turning to Jacobson, the lord scanned him up and down, his eyes narrowing in obvious displeasure as he took notice of the despoiled wisteria. “He also seems to have taken a reckless hand to my garden. I’d have you slain, nithing, save that there are greater matters currently requiring my attention. In lieu of punishment, I simply demand an explanation.”
Jacobson bowed his face even lower, his shoulders sagging in deference. “You must forgive me, m’lord,” he said in an accent that was gruff and unremarkable, the universal dialect of the sellsword. “I had to protect magister Kael-Pellin in the streets. Fought off dozens of attackers on the way here. That,” he said, nodding towards the floral carnage, “was simply strained nerves. Won’t happen again, m’lord.”
Azumana’s manicured eyebrows rose in surprise. “Dozens, you say? Kelrob, is this so? How many men of the garrison have turned?”
“More than two hundred,” Jacobson answered. At Azumana’s stabbing glance, he bowed and sa
id, “Forgive me, m’lord, but I overheard the number from a guard back at the gate. There are also others, tradesmen, merchants, beggars, whores. A loose collection of humble folk all bent to the common ill, and no sense behind it at all.” Reaching down, he drew his blade and held it aloft, much to Kisha’s vexation. “See that chip on the tip? Broke it off in a crazed man’s belly. He’d have struck down the good magister if not for me.”
“Jacobson speaks the truth,” Kelrob said, his teeth grinding around the lie. “He has been an asset to me, and I plan to see him fully rewarded for his service. He will be a nithing no more.”
Jacobson lowered his sword and sheathed it, apparently accepting the bribe to tone down his performance. His one exposed eye glittered, ripe with amusement; the mage wondered if he saw something inhuman spark in its depth.
Lord Azumana smiled coldly. “Having money and having blood are separate things entirely.
But yes, under these extraordinary circumstances and in consideration of your high praise, I will personally see to his reward. I am certain that ten polgari will be more than adequate; he may repair to the barracks and nurse his wounds until this insurgency is brought to heel. Of course you shall have one of my personal guard to replace him, magister Kelrob.”
Kelrob bowed his head. “My thanks, but that will not be necessary. Jacobson has saved my life, and I am oath-sworn to keep him by my side as personal attendant. You may trust my word that he is an honorable man; I would have him at my back before any other.”
Azumana’s thin, hawklike face darkened. “Very well, Kelrob. Of course it shall be as you wish. Clearly you’ve left some fascinating details from the recount of your adventures; perhaps you would care to share them with me over dinner later this evening? I must go now, and see to the preparations of my household. A servant will take you to your rooms, where I recommend you remain until the evening summons. And please,” he said, with a pointed glance at Jacobson, “keep an eye on your man. The most honorable nithing is still little more than thieving chattel.”
Scott J Couturier - [The Magistricide 01] Page 18