Celadonian Tales Vol: 1 Blood and Brass (3 page)

Thorne's mouth opened impossibly far, the sound of bone cracking echoed clearly over the roar of the flames. A boiling cloud of blackness billowed from the alchemist's gaping maw, descending on Aelfgar's form. It was thick and viscous, accompanied by a sizzling sound and an acrid tang in the air. An enormous boom shook the entire room, shattering windows and quenching the flames.

The smoke and blackness soon cleared, showing no sign of the alchemist. Aelfgar lay on the stone floor, his metal body pitted and melted. The chest cavity was open, the gem within dim and pulsing ever slower.

Haem knelt beside the fallen automaton, gently touching one arm. Guilt ripped at him; he had failed the boy.

"It's all right, sir," a small voice whispered from everywhere and nowhere at once. "It's all right. I can hear my mother calling…" The heart stone went dark.

Haem rose slowly, knuckling his eyes. There was much to report to the king. There was also the question of the other automatons – did they all bear the spirits of children?

THE END

Interlude I

Ah, I’ll bet you didn’t hear that version from your wet nurse, now did you? No, they like to claim that the Golden Legion was all down to those with royal blood, not some shameful thing like that. Old Haem Northwarden would weep if he knew.

Still, the Legion is dead and gone now, innit? No more fear of monstrous brass golems smashing city gates and slaughtering peasants. Or so everyone says…

Here, put some more wood on that fire if you don’t mind. Feeling a bit chilled myself. That’s good, that’s good – we don’t want to use it all up yet. The night’s still young and there are more tales to be told!

What’s next? Oh, I’ve a good tale for you. I’ve a love story to tell you, of a sort. You’ve heard of the Shattersea Consortium, yes? Know much of the founders? Old Torgen Sen… now there’s a man what could inspire an entire world of stories!

Behind the Red Door

His fingers gripped the stone of the window ledge. It was slick with ice, and he hung there for a moment, his body rigid as he fought for purchase. A glance below showed howling blackness, punctuated by the roof of the gatehouse rising steeply into the night.
Why in the hells am I doing this,
he asked himself.

Matthias (Matt to his few friends) knew the answer, though. This was THE mark, the score of all scores. After this night's work, he would never have to worry about the night watch again, nor bother picking pockets in Dog's Head Square. He'd set himself up somewhere warm, where snow was nothing but a distant rumor. He'd heard tell of such places, sun-washed beaches, warm breezes and no one to clap you in irons for looking at a noble the wrong way.

Lost in his fantasies, Matt jerked back to the task at hand. The bitter wind whipped around his body, tugging on his tunic. A fall from here was a death sentence – his body crushed and bleeding on the cobbles or impaled on a roof spire below. He redoubled his efforts, frantically searching for purchase on the window ledge. The fingers of his left hand found a crack between two stones. It was barely worthy of the name, but Matt was used to making do. Gently, not daring to breathe lest he somehow pull a stone loose, the thief began the laborious task of hauling himself up to the window.

Here I come, rich man
, he thought.
We'll see how comfortably you sleep after tonight!

At last, Matt perched on the window ledge. Ice crunched beneath the soles of his boots, threatening to spill him to certain death below. The window itself was an ornate thing – beautiful panes of glass set within wooden frames. It was something new for Celadon. Torgen Sen was not one to be satisfied with convention, and had his windows custom made by some architect from far away Ollandra, according to rumor.

It served Matt well, though. A simple tug and the entire window swung upward from the bottom, creating a gap large enough for the thief's body, though only just. If Matt had been a fat man, he'd never have made it. But then again, if he were a fat man, he never would have scaled the wall in the first place.

Iharan had been as good as his word, though Matt had paid the servant enough that he should have murdered his own mother without complaint. He mourned the loss of his meager hoard as he slid down the interior wall into blessed protection from the wind and cold. Still, this night would recoup far more than the small stack of coins.

Matt remembered to tug the window closed behind him, but did not latch it. He needed to get back out again in a hurry, and the window might be the only way without running the gauntlet of Torgen Sen's guards.

Matt stopped to survey the room. It seemed to be a study; shelves of books lined two walls and an immense desk took up the majority of the space. The room was small, but warmly furnished. A heavy rug covered most of the floor and mitigated the chill somewhat. Only one door lead out of the room, and the only window was the one through which he had entered. All in all, this seemed the perfect place for him to enter the villa.

The thief opened his tunic and removed a coil of rope. Choosing one of the desk's legs as his anchor point, he made it fast. Knotting the rope firmly, he tossed the remainder under the window. Matt wondered about the wisdom of just hanging the rope out the window now, but the fear that some random guard would spot it and raise the alarm stopped him. Instead, he settled for leaving it as close to the window as possible. He'd have no time to worry about it when making his exit. Ever cautious, he double-checked the knot. It would never do for it to come loose when he was dangling halfway to the ground.

Matt stepped to the door and pressed his ear to the wood. He heard nothing from the other side. It seemed Iharan was right and the place was deserted. Matt decided to chance it, opening the door just a crack. Pressing his eye to the narrow slit, he could just make out a dimly lit hallway. A torch guttered in its iron sconce farther down, but no one seemed to be about.

Easing the door open farther, Matt stepped through into the hall. All seemed quiet and the thief breathed a small sigh of relief. He would not have put it past the servant to have taken his money and promptly sold him out. No doubt the merchant would have paid a handsome sum for the knowledge that Iharan could provide. Either the servant was too stupid to have double-crossed Matt or the man hated Sen as much as he'd said.

According to the information that the servant had given him, Sen kept his greatest treasure not in a vault or under guard, but locked up in a room on the top floor of his villa. Matt only needed to turn left at the next intersection and he would be almost there. Iharan promised there would be no guards at the door tonight. He was to go to the end of the hall and open the last door on the right – the red door. It all sounded a bit too good to be true, but he could not pass up the opportunity, not for a score of this size.

As silent as fog creeping up the River Cel, Matt moved down the corridor. Low-burning torches sputtered along the way, but they were far enough apart that Matt did not fear discovery. He moved from one puddle of darkness to the next, calling on every ounce of skill learned stalking the streets of Celadon. More quickly than he had anticipated, he encountered the first intersecting hallway. Was this the one that Iharan had meant? A quick glance down the left branching showed him little. The darkness was deeper here, it's velvet caul pierced by only a single torch. The right passage was better lit.

Sudden voices made the thief pause. The tromp of heavy boots followed and Matt retreated, pressing himself into the concealing shadows of a doorway.

"Where's Sen at tonight then, Dineh?" a deep voice asked.

Another male voice answered, "Dunno, Hathe, he don't check in with me before anything, now do he?"

Matt could see neither of the speakers, but the sound of their boots grew louder as they approached the intersection. He held his breath, willing himself invisible. He could only pray that the shadows concealed him, and that the approaching men would take a different turning.

He risked a glance past the edge of the doorframe to see two guards stop in the center of the intersection. Both wore Sen's arms on their cloaks.

"Now Dineh, there's no need to be an arse," one said.

"Weren't being an arse, Hathe, just pointing out that there ain't no way for me to know where the man might be. Asides, ain't tonight the anniversary of his lady's death? I'd imagine he'd be grievin' summat."

"Oh," Hathe replied, seeming a bit crestfallen, "right. Forgot about that, so I did."

"You might, bucko, but you can bet Sen ain't. Fond o'her, he was, I've heard tell."

The two guards faced each other for a moment longer, then turned and moved up the central hall, away from Matt. They paid no notice at all to the left hand hall. Matt would have sworn they chose to ignore it completely. As the pair moved down the hall away from him, Matt breathed a sigh of relief. He allowed his body to relax slightly, the tension draining from his limbs.

So, Sen was occupied tonight. That explained why Iharan had insisted that it had to be tonight. The servant seemed to have a good head for this; perhaps Matt needed to revise his opinion of the man. It was possible he was not a total idiot.

Unwilling to risk the guards returning, Matt moved swiftly out of the concealing shadows. Glancing around to make sure no one saw him, the thief turned left and made his way down the darkened hallway.

The darkness grew deeper as he moved farther down the hallway, and the place smelled musty, unused.
Sen must keep his servants away from here on purpose
, Matt mused. Images of piled coins, heaped gems and that dream of faraway warmth and prosperity shot through his mind. Matt grinned and quickened his pace.

Finally, he came to the end of the hall and there was the door, red and ornate. It was large, heavy and highly decorated. Intricate carvings ran across the face of the door, but there was something wrong with them. Matt's head hurt to look at them too closely, or focus on them too intently.

Is this why Sen doesn't need a guard?
Even as they repelled him, Matt felt curiously compelled to look harder at the jagged lines and swirling chaos that adorned the door. It took a conscious effort to force his eyes away, to focus on a different point. Matt cursed.
Now what?

He reached out one finger to touch the door, hesitant, testing. Nothing happened.
Maybe they really are nothing but bizarre carvings
, he thought. Without much hope, he put his hand to the latch and pushed. Nothing.
Of course
, he thought sourly. Well, there was nothing for it but to get to work. He pulled his kit from a small satchel and set to it. He prayed to all the gods above and below that the lock had nothing in common with the strange patterns on the face of the door. Matt selected a pick and inserted it into the lock, gently probing and prodding, feeling for the telltale sign that he had found just the right place.

Sweat beaded on his brow as he knelt before the door, ears straining for any signs of approaching guards.
Slowly, slowly,
he admonished himself, probing the lock further. He'd yet to meet a lock that was his match, and he'd be damned if this would be the one to do it. Seconds turned to minutes, and those minutes seemed to stretch out interminably.

Finally, a soft
snick
told him that the lock had yielded to him – he still had the touch. Matt smiled and tucked the tools of his trade away. Still cautious, he unsheathed his dagger and held it at the ready as he reached for the handle. Celadon was a dangerous place and Matt hadn't kept his hide intact without having at least a modicum of respect for that danger. Even a locked room could hold a threat.

He pushed the door and it creaked open. Matt held his breath – the damned sound was loud enough to wake the dead! Peering through the small opening did no good. The room was as black as the pits below Harrson's Keep, and cold to boot. Bracing himself, Matt pushed into the room.

He could just make out a vague outline in the center of the room – a table, perhaps. The sudden squeal of door hinges alerted him to the fact that he was not alone in the murk. He tried to turn, but something smashed hard into the back of his skull. Pain overwhelmed him and blinding white lights danced before his eyes. Then everything went dark, truly dark.

***

He came back from the murky depths of unconsciousness to pain. His head ached and throbbed, pulsing in time with his heartbeat. Matt tried to open his eyes, but everything was blurry and indistinct. Vertigo washed over him and he snapped them shut once more.

What happened?
He could feel something cold and sticky on the back of his neck. Matt tried to raise a hand to his head, but nothing happened.

Still groggy, he shook his head at the pain, and immediately noticed something else. He was leaning against something rough and hard that tore at his injured skull with the motion.
What is this?
He had his suspicions, though. Matt was becoming more aware now. Another attempt to raise his arms offered the same results. His hands were bound behind his back. As his faculties recovered, the rope biting into his wrists became obvious and painful.

He remembered the squeal of the door hinges and the blow to his head. Someone had surprised him, and Matt had a pretty good idea of just who that was.

Forcing his eyes open brought on another wave of vertigo, but Matt was determined. As his vision stopped swimming, he was able to take stock of his surroundings. Dim light illuminated the room, but the source of illumination was not immediately visible, because a huge stone table blocked his vision. It was a cold, white light, though, not the warm flicker of torches or candles.

The room was walled in stone, most of it rough and undressed. A flash of color told Matt all he needed to know – the red door through which he had entered, now shut tight, stood in the wall on his left. He was still in the treasure room, then. Glancing down to his belt told him his captor had taken his kit and his dagger.