Cold Iron

by Miles Cameron

  He was casting.

  The three began to come forward.

  ‘We could run,’ Kallinikos said. His voice squeaked. But the man himself stood his ground.

  Aranthur’s heart beat like a drum. ‘I’m here if you are,’ he said.

  The dark old man was still casting. Aranthur caught a phrase; it sounded like Armean. An Eastern incantation.

  ‘Does everyone cheat in duels?’ he asked.

  Kallinikos was white as a sheet but he managed a smile.

  ‘Damn,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t we think of that?’

  The three bravos began to move faster – not to run, but to move in extraordinary, quick ways, like badly managed marionettes.

  Kallinikos reached out and touched Aranthur’s left hand with his own.

  ‘You are a prince,’ he said.

  The three bravos had long, narrow swords with cup hilts – a Western style beloved of criminal enforcers and street bravos.

  Aranthur looked the three over as he had been taught. Master Sparthos advocated caution and a long, careful summing up of the opponent, but odds of two to one militated against that. And two of the bravos went for Aranthur. They were faster than wolves.

  He drew. He was wearing his new arming sword and it was comfortable in his hand, but much, much shorter than the weapons the bravos had.

  ‘Aploun,’ he said again. He wasn’t sure whether it was an invocation or a curse.

  His two opponents were competent, but shorter than he. Both hesitated to cross blades first despite their rapid, jerky advance.

  Aranthur named them, in his head, Doublet and Big Nose. Doublet was slightly closer and when Aranthur shifted a step to his right, the man stepped left, unwittingly placing his own back to the canal. The motion was as quick as the blink of a tiger, but Aranthur committed instantly. He stepped forward, crossing Doublet’s sword with a crisp tap, and then immediately charging him, collapsing his garde into his chest. Aranthur had a moment of surprise as his tactic worked so easily. Then he had the man’s sword arm, which he broke before throwing the man into the canal with his hip and turning, the man’s incredibly rapid counter-punch to his jaw just starting to throb.

  Kallinikos was down on one knee with a sword through the meat of his thigh. He’d dropped his sword.

  Aranthur pivoted on the balls of his feet and charged.

  Kallinikos’ opponent, despite his supernatural speed, was hampered by his sword being stuck in Kallinikos’ thigh. Big Nose was eager to cross swords with Aranthur. The result was a collision as all three men tried to enter the same space. The bravo’s sword came out of Kallinikos as the young man screamed, but it was far too slow. Aranthur took the man’s sword hand in his left, dashed his hilt in the man’s face, and attempted to throw him to the ground with blood pouring out of his mouth.

  Using his preternatural speed, the other man turned into the throw and leapt back, still on his feet – an incredible physical act. He cut at Aranthur despite the blood streaming from his nose and mouth.

  Aranthur’s parry had more luck than skill to it; the man’s incredible cut went into his sword with a clang.

  Aranthur, even in the very heart of the fight, wondered at the speed of the men and what kind of occulta might have enhanced them. He whirled, but Big Nose stepped back and threw his sword like a thunderbolt of Coryn the Thunderer.

  Aranthur cut it out of the air. He didn’t catch it all – it was too fast – and the hilt rotated and slammed into his hip, staggering him.

  Bloody Face came at him a beat after the thrown sword, striking like a snake with his long sword from a long measure. Aranthur hammered the sword’s point to the ground with a clumsy, off-balance parry. But the man’s point caught between two cobbles, and quick as he was, he couldn’t free it before Aranthur stepped on it, trapping it under his sole.

  Big Nose was already running.

  Bloody Face dropped his sword and reached for his dagger. Aranthur cut without thinking, and fingers fell. The man screamed. He backed as fast as a spider and then looked with horror at his right hand and screamed again.

  ‘Daaamn,’ Kallinikos said through gritted teeth.

  The old man was still standing on the far side of the canal. He raised a hand.

  Aranthur looked at the rapidly forming puddle of blood under his friend. He knew …

  He knew some occultae, recently learnt to help him understand the Safiri spells. He had his talisman around his neck and he knelt by Kallinikos. He had done well in practical philosophy, and he knew, academically, how to combine his occultae with his practical knowledge.

  ‘I’m—’

  ‘Shut up and let me concentrate.’

  Aranthur tried to clear his mind and nothing much happened except that more blood flowed out. A surprising amount of blood. From the colour, an artery was cut.

  There was a loud bang.

  Puffer, Aranthur thought.

  He wasn’t hit; neither was Kallinikos.

  I should raise a shield, he thought too late.

  The man across the canal drew something from his belt.

  Aranthur took a deep breath and dropped into himself. It was not his best trance, but it was sufficient to look for the signs of the occulta he wanted and unravel it like a string. And tie it to the world’s wind … There.

  But something was contesting with him, fighting to promote the blood loss, to keep the little vessel pumping his friend’s blood. He could feel it. Malign, careful, a heavy weight.

  Aranthur was a big man. He was used to getting his way in contests, and in his mind, he was a farmer – stubborn. Solid. He pushed.

  It was as if the world came into focus. He almost felt as if there was a tangible click.

  He breathed.

  Opened his eyes. The Master of Arts told him that closing his eyes was a bad habit. He believed her, but this time …

  Kallinikos was watching him like a drowning man watching a raft. The man across the canal was casting again, and now he raised a small red shield, the first casting from the Safian grimoire. To his left, a dozen armoured men appeared – City Watch with a magistrate.

  Their assailant began hurrying away, clutching his chest as if having trouble breathing. Aranthur was tempted to follow him. But Kallinikos was not saved. He was merely not bleeding to death.

  ‘We need a doctor,’ Aranthur said.

  The Watch found them an Imoter who worked hard to save Kallinikos. Kallinikos refused to name their attacker and claimed that they had been set on by footpads. Aranthur had no chance to talk to his friend at first, and no one wanted to talk to him, anyway.

  Aranthur spent the night in the prison of the Great Gate, mostly because he was an Arnaut, and all of the Watch assumed he was a criminal of some sort, until an embarassed jailor released him to Centark Equus. The centark was not amused.

  ‘Fucking civilians,’ he muttered. The officer was a little drunk. ‘I could be in the arms of a beautiful woman right now,’ he lamented. ‘Why did they arrest you?’

  Aranthur tried to explain.

  Equus shook his head. ‘Timos, do me a favour? Next time, get killed, or run away. Don’t call me!’

  ‘I didn’t!’ Aranthur insisted.

  Equus shrugged. ‘Someone did. Bah. I can’t go back to her rooms, so I might as well … Hmm. Quaveh or wine?’

  Aranthur shared an early morning cup of quaveh with his officer, thanked him profusely for his release, and walked home.

  He wasn’t even sure he’d succeeded in saving Kallinikos until an hour later, when he looked in and found Chiraz tending to the young man. His healthy brown skin was the colour of ash, and he could not speak. But Chiraz insisted that he would recover.

  And then Aranthur went to class. After class he went to work. At work, he kept reliving the fight. He’d been lucky, but it had all … worked. Instead of riding, he stopped at the salle and waited for Syr Sapu. He told the story, and Sapu shook his head.

  ‘You have the luck of the very goddess of fo
rtune,’ Sapu said. ‘But … I should tell the Master. He always wants to know when a student uses his skills. For real.’ He put out a hand. ‘Everyone cheats in duels, Aranthur. Don’t be naïve again.’

  Aranthur bowed. ‘I promised to be silent.’

  ‘As did I,’ Sapu said.

  Inside the salle, Djinar was lecturing on Voltain politics. He didn’t look up, and Aranthur didn’t stop to listen. He went through, did his drills, and went home.

  Sasan was gone.

  Aranthur feared the worst. He ate, drank some bad wine, and went across the street to find Kallinikos. His butler met him at the door.

  ‘Master is in a bad way,’ Chiraz said.

  ‘But my friend …’

  ‘He is well. See to Master.’

  Chiraz bowed, and Aranthur hurried in to the bedroom. Kallinikos lay propped on pillows, looking very near death

  ‘He killed her,’ Kallinikos said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He killed her. Her maidservant is in hiding – my father smuggled her out of the city. He came back from the fight and killed her with a puffer.’ Kallinikos’ face was pinched. His cheeks burned. ‘Thanks, Timos. You stood by me. Saved my life. I will fucking avenge her. And defy my father.’

  Aranthur shook his head. ‘Do you know he killed her?’

  ‘Oh, yes. The maid described it all. He’s insane. And he threatened my father with a House war if I was not punished.’ He lay back suddenly. ‘Is it my imagination, or did he put a magik on those bravos?’

  ‘Not your imagination.’

  Aranthur thought of the occulta and how much it had resembled the complex enhancement he was learning from the Safiri grimoire.

  ‘You may have to testify. In a Court of Honour.’ Kallinikos shook his head. ‘I’m very sorry, Timos. I have been a bad friend.’ He shook his head. ‘He is a … business partner … of my father’s. It’s all twisted up.’ He shook his head. ‘You are well clear of it.’

  Aranthur took his hand and shook it.

  ‘Never say so. In a few years we’ll laugh about this.’ He made a face. ‘House war? In the City?’

  Kallinikos shrugged. ‘There are two hundred Houses. Mine is one of the Ten, the Imperial Houses. But what matters is the web of alliances that bind us together or separate us – marriages, divorces, bastard children, unpaid debts, loves, hates, politics. It’s all very …’ He turned away. ‘Personal,’ he said distinctly. ‘Aristocrats think that they are so important that they don’t need an ideology to dress up greed or rage. They just do what suits them.’

  ‘Like Arnaut farmers, then. It’ll pass, Mikal. You will see. Ten days wonder, and then something else …’

  Kallinikos frowned. ‘I doubt it. I loved her. Not a student fling. You had to know her.’

  Aranthur nodded.

  ‘He’s insane,’ Kallinikos said.

  Aranthur almost forgot the thuryx addict, but Chiraz stopped him on the way out.

  ‘Your friend, Syr Drako,’ he said. ‘He took Syr Sasan.’

  Aranthur put a hand to his forehead. ‘Of course he did,’ he said bitterly.

  Another week passed, and Aranthur successfully summoned the wind of magik and powered the Safiri occulta. In the very act of writing it on himself, he was sure that this was a much more powerful version of the same spell that he had seen cast on the three bravos. Or perhaps, cast across three men, it was weaker.

  The Master of Arts squeezed his arm. ‘I’m off to cross the straits. I won’t be here for two weeks. The ground is hard. I suggest you go home for ploughing, and come back ready to work.’ She paused. ‘You cannot go on at this rate, my young friend. You fought two duels, eh? Let me be clear – you are now forbidden to fight. That is my word. You are forbidden to risk yourself in any way.’ She smiled gently. ‘You are an investment, Syr Timos. You do not belong to yourself. Am I making myself clear?’

  ‘Yes, my lady.’ He was suddenly angry. He couldn’t explain the anger, but it was there, and he blurted, ‘Why am I even here?’

  ‘You are my choice to learn Safiri. And you continue to justify that choice. But all this swordplay must end.’

  ‘Your choice?’ he asked. ‘Or the Emperor’s choice?’

  She looked at him as if he was a dying rodent brought into her study by the cat.

  ‘What?’

  Aranthur hadn’t even known he harboured so much resentment, but out it came.

  ‘Wasn’t I chosen by the Emperor?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ the Master of Arts said. ‘That’s the strangest thing I’ve ever heard. If the Emperor had ordered me to take you, we’d have one of those ugly confrontations that the Academy has with the Imperium.’ She looked at him. ‘Why?’

  Aranthur deflated. ‘Oh.’

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘Best tell me, young man.’

  He shrugged. ‘I know Mistress Iralia.’

  The Master of Arts threw back her head and laughed.

  ‘And you thought …’ She smiled. ‘Well, she has certainly mentioned you. And the Emperor knows your name. Now, I need to ask you to stop working. You look bad, and you are sometimes inattentive. Nonetheless, your work is excellent.’ She looked at him. ‘You like to fight. You enjoy the violence.’

  Aranthur didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Perhaps I can channel that,’ she said. ‘Why have you ceased seeing my Dahlia?’

  ‘I …’ he began. His mouth opened and shut.

  ‘I’m sure she said something dramatic and overblown. Or perhaps you ignored her?’ Her eyes bored holes in Aranthur’s mind. ‘You should try seeing her.’

  Aranthur looked away.

  ‘Youth is wasted on the young,’ she said.

  ‘May I ask you a question?’ Aranthur said.

  ‘Anything,’ the Master of Arts replied.

  ‘Is there anyone else in the City who knows the spells in this grimoire?’

  She looked at him for a moment. ‘I can’t imagine so. If there was, you’d be training with them.’

  Aranthur bowed. But in his head, he was thinking, The crazy husband used my spell. My Safiri spell. I saw his gestures and heard Armean. Similar, but not the same. Weaker, maybe. But the same.

  He didn’t know where to go with that.

  ‘I know you don’t want to hear about my duel,’ Aranthur said. ‘But the man we were supposed to fight … He used a variation of this occulta. And then he tried to make my friend bleed out … I can’t tell you why, but I feel that it was another Safiri spell. Or Armean. It’s a hunch,’ he said, as she frowned.

  ‘There cannot be another registered Magos in this city who knows these workings,’ she said. ‘If there was, as I said, you’d be working with him. Or her.’ She frowned. ‘Get me his name.’

  ‘I will,’ Aranthur said.

  Aranthur had a feeling of repeating his own life; he was repeating the week before First Sun. He went to the spice market, which was one of his favourite places in the City; a huge building constructed to support commerce, where five hundred merchants, local and foreign, sold everything from rare spices and Zhouian silk to local grain and even speculations in coin values. He enjoyed the smell and the taste. There was so much cinnamon in the building that he felt as if he was breathing the stuff; cinnamon and mace, pepper and quaveh beans; candies coated in saffron, and barrels of nutmegs. He bought the whole list of spices for Donna Cucina. Then he hurried back out of the merchants’ quarter to write his mathematics examination with both eyes half-open and left with the impression that he’d done very poorly. He went and checked on Kallinikos, who was propped up in bed and surrounded by admirers in fine clothes.

  Aranthur might have slunk out, but Kallinikos called out ‘Timos!’ and the other young men and women made way.

  ‘Ah, the other hero of the hour,’ a short man said. He had perfect teeth and white-blond hair and a magnificent doublet in red and blue wool trimmed in fur. ‘And you are?’

  ‘He’s Timos,’ Kallinikos said, as if Aranthur was an ar
istocrat.

  ‘Arnaut?’ The short blond was trying to look down his nose, only Aranthur was a whole head taller.

  ‘Yes,’ Aranthur said. ‘And you, sir?’ He meant to be annoying, and he succeeded. The man backed up a step.

  ‘I am Siran, of the City.’

  He wore the colours of the Lions, the Academy club for the most conservative and snobbish aristocrats. Aranthur had reason to remember them.

  Kallinikos laughed. ‘Come and see me tomorrow, Timos. The company will be better.’

  ‘I say.’ Siran frowned, clearly insulted. ‘I am honouring you, my friend. We want you back among us!’

  Kallinikos ignored the man. ‘Where are you bound, Aranthur?’

  Aranthur bowed. ‘I’m away to help my patur with ploughing.’

  Kallinikos nodded. Their relationship was altered; Aranthur could have said, ‘I’m going home to kill my patur,’ and Kallinikos would have nodded the same way.

  ‘Well,’ the aristocrat said. ‘I’ll likely be out of bed again when you return. Visit me.’

  Aranthur took his hand, left to left as swordsmen did.

  ‘I’m glad to see you better. And the other matter?’

  Kallinikos gave a small shrug. He was changed; Aranthur could see that more than his body was wounded.

  ‘The husband is still threatening war. Hence, my House allies.’ Softly, he said, ‘Who want me to go back to being a Lion.’

  ‘Be careful,’ Aranthur said. ‘Would it be plebeian of me to ask our enemy’s name?’

  ‘Tangar Uthmanos,’ Kallinikos said.

  ‘Uthmanos,’ Aranthur repeated to himself. ‘Very well. Be careful while I’m gone.’

  ‘This, from you?’ Kallinikos lay back. ‘You too, take care. The Uthmanoi make bad enemies.’

  Aranthur bowed, and withdrew.

  ‘Going west?’ Siran said. ‘A good many of us may ride out that way soon.’ He smiled a smile he probably meant to be dangerous.

  ‘Really?’

  Aranthur thought of recommending Lecne’s inn, then decided he didn’t like the man, so he stayed quiet.

  He bowed again and left, feeling fairly pleased with himself. He sat up late and, instead of writing out a religious text for his sister, he wrote a poem for Dahlia. He liked it. He had things to say, and he said them.