Metal and Magic: A Fantasy Journey

by Steve Windsor

The floor of the hall was tiled with large squares of black and white marble arranged in whorls looping and weaving through each other with no apparent pattern. When Jute came to the center of the hall, he found a circle of blue stone set within the floor. He stood in the middle of it and admired the blue stone for a moment, for it had a lovely gleam and looked, to his eye, valuable and regretfully wasted as floor paving.

  To his alarm, however, as soon as he stepped off the circle he discovered that he could not control his movement and marched stiff-legged all around the hall in a nonsensical pattern that would have done justice to a drunkard. At first, he was frightened, for he assumed that some sort of creature or fire or chasm was about to appear. Nothing of the sort happened, however, and he continued marching crazily about the hall, hopelessly caught by the compulsion of the ward.

  After about an hour of this, he was cross and tired. By a stroke of luck, though, his wandering path brought him veering toward the blue circle, which had not happened yet in the last hour, so large was the hall. As he neared the blue stone, he felt the compulsion on him lessen and with a tremendous wrench he leapt into the safety of the circle. He sat there panting and mentally cursing all wizards, alive or dead.

  Growing hungry, he attempted the floor again but was caught by the same compulsion. He could have wept, so tired was he. This time, however, his fatigue aided his escape, for with drooping head and eyes fixed on the floor he noticed that the compulsion marched him around only on the black stones. Not once was he allowed to step on a white stone.

  The next time he neared the circle of blue stone in the center of the hall, he was ready. He leapt into its safety and then ventured back out, careful to step on a white stone. The compulsion did not seize him and he left the hall, stepping from white stone to white stone.

  One afternoon, Jute wandered down a hallway lined with old mosaics. Many of them were missing stones, rendering faces eyeless and dragons toothless. A fool grinned at him with seven scarlet balls describing a circle around his patchwork body. A warrior leaned on a bloody sword under a bone-white moon. Horns mutely blaring, a hunt rode through a gaunt and ghostly wood. A fearsome dragon of black-scaled bulk curled its length about the base of a crumbling tower, eyes glinting red and a wisp of flame escaping from the massive mouth. The sun set on the horizon of an ocean that seemed to swell and surge with movement—but when he stepped closer, startled, to inspect the tiny stones of the mosaic, they were only that: tiny stones of varied shades of blue and green. Something stirred at the corner of his eye, and he whirled, fearing a ward. But nothing moved again. There were only long, sloping shadows from the setting sun and the dust motes that turned and glided within the light. For a moment, he thought he heard a voice whisper his name, but then there was only silence. He turned and walked quickly to the end of the hallway, the back of his neck prickling uncomfortably.

  Through a door, Jute found himself standing in a high gallery that ran the length of one side of huge hall that was, perhaps, a staggering three stories in interior height. To his recollection, he had never been in this part of the university before. Tall, thin clerestory windows lined the walls, and the late sunlight streamed in, shining on the white stone walls and filling the place with a blinding radiance. Such was the reflective quality of the white stone that he could not see a single shadow cast anywhere in the room. Fragile pillars rose up from the floor below and swept up and up and up into an arched ceiling that seemed to float on the slender columns that lined the walls. At the far end of the gallery he found a winding stair that circled down and down until he stood on the hall floor. Faces were carved into the pillar facades—both men and women, old and young. He counted them as he walked along but soon lost track, for the pillars were not arranged in any particular order but were myriad and rose from the floor like the trunks of trees in some strange, unearthly forest. It was the oddest room he had been in yet, but there was a quiet peace to the place, and it seemed untouched by any of the ravages of the Midsummer War that had marred so much of the university.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: A DISTURBING ENTRY ON SCEADUS

  The night arrived as the sun slipped down into the ocean. The moon crept up into the sky, but no stars were visible yet. To the east, a dark bank of clouds rolled toward the city.

  Nio sat in his library and stared out the window, a book open in his lap. Fynden Fram’s Endebyrdnes of Gesceaft. The Order of Creatures. He knew the book by heart. There was not much point in reading it, but he was looking for reassurance. Vainly looking, of course.

  When he had returned to the house after meeting the Juggler, he had found the wihht shambling about the rooms. It was unsettling, for his command over the thing should have kept it waiting in the basement. Somehow, his control was fraying. The thing had been unwilling or unable to give him much of a reason for its behavior, only mumbling that it was hungry. It needed food. Just some food. Just a taste. A bite. But wihhts didn’t need food, like a man or an animal needs food to survive. Wihhts survived on the strength of their maker’s will.

  At least, that’s what he had assumed.

  The thing had lurched off to the basement without protest as soon as he snapped out the order. Still, it made him uneasy. There were definitely some things about wihhts he did not know yet.

  But Fynden Fram, despite his genius, had nothing to say in his Nokhoron Nozhan Endebyrdnes of Gesceaft that Nio did not already know. Wihhts only ate on command of their master, and only then to bring about a modification their master willed. Nio thought uncomfortably about the wihht absorbing his blood. It had wanted to take more than he had wanted to give, hadn’t it?—right at the end? That didn’t line up with what old Fram had written. No matter. He would unmake the wihht soon. Besides, it would be good to have the thing unraveled and gone before Severan or one of the other old fools might come by the house and stumble on it.

  The irritating thing about Fynden Fram’s writing was that, despite the wealth of detail, his descriptions of creatures tended to be divorced from historical context. For example, if he wrote of giants, he had nearly nothing to say of their origins, or in what lands or wars they had been encountered. Rather, he provided terse descriptions of physiognomy, habits, and social customs. In addition, there were often details on how a creature interacted with magic or was affected by the same.

  The giant, or oyrs, can live to ages of over three hundred years, though they reach their full maturity at the first hundred. In death, they are laid out upon the ground where, in some curious interaction of the moonlight, they slowly turn to stone. In appearance, the giant resembles the race of man, though one must be a distance away from a giant in order to notice the similarity. If one gets too close, besides the hazard of proximity, one will find the giant’s face so large that it cannot be viewed in entirety; rather, it must be looked on in part—here is the nose, here is a huge, staring eye, over there is a portion of mouth or cheekbone.

  The scarcity of historical setting in the entries gave one the unpleasant feeling that all the creatures the old scholar wrote of were still alive.

  Such as the sceadus.

  A scant page in the book was devoted to details of the sceadus. It was the shortest entry among hundreds of other entries that ran from the next shortest—five pages about cobolds—to the longest—seventeen pages about dragons, a section that made for fascinating, but unsettling reading. Almost as unsettling as what Fram had written concerning sceadus.

  The sceadus were not created by Anue. Rather, they were made out of darkness, woven from the feorh of it into forms of their master’s choosing. Legend tells that only three sceadus were ever brought into existence, though I am not certain of this claim. Some analogy exists between the making of a wihht and the making of a sceadu. An external will must be brought to bear upon the essence desired as the foundation material for the creature. There, the similarity between the two types ends. A wihht, of course, can be made from nearly anything, combinations of material such as earth, wood, water, fire, or stone. A sc
eadu, on the other hand, can only be made from darkness, and thus is a thing of pure evil. Certain histories indicate that the sceadus are close in power to the anbeorun themselves. While some have claimed the ability to fashion wihhts of all shapes and strengths, no man has ever had the power to fashion a sceadu. No man ever will—thankfully. This begs the question: if not the gods, then who was powerful enough to have created the three sceadus?

  That was the question. Perhaps one of the four wanderers, the anbeorun, could command enough will to shape darkness? But they would never have reason, for the creation of a sceadu meant a level of evil in the creator equal to the abomination created. That made no sense in light of what was known of the wanderers. According to history, the anbeorun existed to guard against the Dark. Yet the mosaic indicated a tie of some kind between the anbeorun of fire, Aeled, and a sceadu.

  The entry in Fynden Fram’s anthology continued.

  A sceadu can take any shape it chooses: stone or shadow, the wind crossing the plain, animals, man, a tree growing in the forest. It mimics the shapes of things that already are, just as its power is merely a reflection of the strength of its maker and the darkness. There is no reliable way to determine the presence of a sceadu, though one account of the death of Allevian Tobry—

  Who was Allevian Tobry? Nio had always wondered about that, for he had never come across any other mention of the name.

  —records that a stranger appeared at his gates, cloaked and hooded despite the summer’s heat, and so brought death to that lord with a touch of his hand. Everyone of his household felt an intense cold emanating in waves from the stranger, as ripples do spread out around a stone tossed into a pool. After the stranger had departed, all fell sick of a lingering fever. The wizard of the household claimed it had been no man, but a sceadu. I cannot vouch for the truth of this account, as there is little other firsthand knowledge of encounters with sceadus. There is no known way of killing the creatures, though they themselves feed on death and will kill for no reason at all. They need death in order to live. This is not surprising, as they are the oldest servants of the Dark.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: LISS GALNES

  The following day, Ronan made his way to the Street of Willows in the Highneck Rise district. It was still raining. It had not let up through the night. The gutters ran with water.

  The worst of his injuries had faded to dull aches over night. Except for his ribs. He’d have to be careful there. He had always been a quick healer. His mother had said that came from her side of the family.

  A sour smile crossed his face. He could only hope the children wouldn’t breathe a word of what they’d done. If anyone found out about it, he’d be the laughingstock of the Guild. But those children would be thinking hard on what they’d done. Especially when they were alone. They’d be looking over their shoulders for a long time. He’d been the Silentman’s Knife for seven years now, settling matters in alleys and in back rooms where his prey had nowhere left to run to, except into the tired arms of death.

  Death. Like a shadow always on his heels, treading closer over the years until it was almost like his own shadow. But they weren’t friends, even though he had handed over many souls into its embrace. No, it was a working relationship, begun in distaste and dulling over the years into numbness. He didn’t dream anymore. His memories no longer troubled him, for they also had numbed.

  But it would be different when he went to Flessoray. It was too late to go back home, but he could go to the islands. If he could get the Silentman to release him from his duties. Maybe he would have to sneak out of the city. The Flessoray Islands were north, off the coast of Harlech. They rose up out of the sea, made of stone and scrub pines. Folk lived apart there, content with their lives and having no interest in the outside world of Tormay. Life was measured by the patience of the sea and by the wind wearing away the days until stone and man alike were scraped clean to their bones. Perhaps then, there, things would be different, and he would let the wind blow through him until he was empty.

  The Street of Willows was lined with manors, complacent behind their high walls. Gates were locked against the weather and thieves such as himself. The trees from which the street took its name stood in rows of drooping branches on either side of the cobblestones. He stood underneath one and considered the wall a few yards further down. Water dripped down from the leaves onto his head. Under normal circumstances, without broken ribs, the height of the wall would not have been a problem. He scowled. Children!

  Ronan wasn’t getting any warmer, or any drier for that matter, so he climbed the wall. Just as Arodilac had said, the tree outside the Galnes wall provided an easy ascent. He crept out onto a branch that reached toward the top of the wall and listened for a moment. But he heard no wards whispering, no rustle of invisible threads tightening, ready to snap around him. And then he was over and down, wincing as his ribs grated, a dark shape in the rain that melted into the darker shadows of the shrubbery.

  It was a small garden, filled with bushes and trees that crowded about a patch of grass. The rain had stripped the flowers from the bushes, and everywhere the ground was dappled with white petals. Lights shone in the windows of the manor beyond. And there were the apple trees. He reached out and plucked one. Tart and sweet. Good, but certainly not good enough to warrant this mess. There were better apples to be bought in the city. Something tickled uneasily at the back of his mind, but then he thought no more of it. A job was a job, regardless of the client’s reasons.

  Ronan paused in the shadows against the manor wall and pressed his ear to the stone. He heard nothing. No wards muttering their hidden menace. Nothing at all. He shrugged and began to climb. The walls were made of granite and offered easy holds. His hands and feet were unerring in their instincts. His ribs twinged in protest but he ignored them.

  He stopped at one window, just to the side of the casement. The glass was ajar, and he heard the sound of a lute. The notes bore a strange resonance in them that brought to mind the sea. They sounded singly. One like the wavering call of a seagull, others like wind plucking the rigging of a ship, still others that belled in the low tones of the buoy that swayed at the harbor mouth of Hearne.

  He edged closer and peered inside. A girl sat upon a stool, her head drooping over the instrument. He could not see her entire face. But he could see enough. The angle of cheekbone, stark with shadow, a white brow and neck framed by a wing of hair, burnished blue-black like night on water. Her fingers wandered across the strings, slow and blind in their movement, for her eyes were closed. Silently, he eased away and resumed his climb.

  A dormer window provided entrance to the house from the top of the roof. Ronan tripped the lock with a length of wire and slipped inside. Immediately within was a small room, dark except for light glowing from beneath a door. He took off his wet jacket and boots and then settled down in a corner.

  Anyone can rob a house. But to do the job well takes more than just skill. It takes an instinct for places—being able to walk into a house and let your senses reach out and become aware of spaces, shapes, shifts in temperature, drafts betraying holes and hidden rooms, the creaks of old wood, of water dripping, mice mumbling within walls. No amount of teaching or practice can guarantee this; it’s instinctive.

  A few notes drifted up to Ronan’s ears. The lute. He could smell bread baking—the old cook hardly ever left her kitchen, according to Arodilac. As he listened, he began to sense more: the tick of a grandfather clock, warmth from the kitchen stove rising up a chimney and exhaling into all the floors of the house, the contented creak of beams and boards complacent about the rain outside. There was a comfortable shabbiness to the place, as if many generations had been birthed and lived and died within its walls, leaving their marks in staircases worn smooth, faded paintings, and the ghosts of memories lingering in the place they loved.

  Ronan eased open the door and found himself at the top of a staircase. The lute played faintly from several floors down. The steps were silent under hi
s weight—good workmanship and heavy wood. He smiled complacently. He had no fear of discovery within the manor. It was a large place, with surely many hiding spots if someone approached. And he knew—he sensed—there were only two people within: the cook far below in her kitchen, and the girl still playing her lute. Two floors down was his guess. He could sense something else. A touch of power concentrated in a tiny place. The ring.

  Far below him, he heard the lute stop.

  Footsteps creaked up the stairs. The girl emerged up from the shadows, still carrying her lute. She stopped in front of him, an almost incurious look on her face. The lamplight brought her face alive. He tried to move, but could not.

  “There are easier houses in Hearne to rob,” she said. He could not answer.

  She regarded him for a moment and then spoke again.

  “I am mistress of this house.” Her eyes turned on his, dark blue as a storm sky. Or gray. Yes—he was mistaken. They were gray. “My name is Liss Galnes.”

  Whatever held him vanished. He stumbled back and caught himself on the wall.

  “It would only take the blink of an eye,” he said, furious and shaky with fear at the same time, hand groping for the knife at his side.

  “Not in this house,” Liss said.

  He believed her.

  “Come,” she said, turning away.

  Liss led him downstairs, through room after room and more staircases. Faces stared down from paintings: knowing, secretive looks of men and women; children standing gravely with pet dogs; a mother holding a silk-swaddled infant who seemed to smile at him. Faded furniture, tall casement windows that reached up to the cobwebs of vaulted ceilings. Rain streaked against the glass. They crossed the polished wooden floor of a hall. Mirrors showed a girl who seemed to drift like a feather, followed by the grim-faced man moving heavily in her wake.

  “Where are we going?” he said.