Prodigal Steelwielder (Seals of the Duelists Book 3) (9 page)

Someone’s upper arm pressed against his for a long moment, drawing Bayan out of his reverie as he stood still on the wooden walkway. Out of habit, Bayan looked upward, but the man by his side was only a fraction taller than he was and seemed older than Bayan by a dozen or so years. The shaggy blond man offered him a tentative, craggy smile. “You’re with the circus.” It wasn’t a question. Bayan nodded. “Do you know why you’re here?”

The tension in the other man’s voice was cable thick and just as taut. Wary, Bayan replied, “I’m just a storyteller.”

The man paused beside him for a moment then inclined his head toward an open doorway, but Bayan had no intention of following him into any enclosed spaces. He balked. The man noticed his hesitation and turned. “You’re not a
Coronàle
, are you? Some foreign type from far away? I thought so. We want you to know something.” He stepped close, keeping his gaze across the street as though studying the shops there, and whispered under the noise of the avenue. “You’re in danger.”

Alarmed, Bayan willed Lifeseeker to form a detection sphere around him and followed it up by hexing Earth and Wood as well. If anything tried to rush him, whether body or weapon, he’d sense it. Nothing moved in his direction, though, and the stranger kept very still. He asked, “What danger would that be? Are you threatening me?”

The shaggy head wagged in the negative. “Not you. Not only you. You are
Yl Senyecho
’s tools. You know this?”

Bayan gave a cautious nod. “I think so. I know some. The steel
valios
are not happy, so
Yl Senyecho
sends us.”

A bitter grimace rippled across the man’s full lips. “You see the cantina across the street? The one with the dancing girls outside the door? Come back after your performance tonight. Meet me in the very back room. I think you’ll have a different perspective by then. Or at least the willingness to acquire one. I will tell you what no one wants to hear.” With a graceful turn, the man spun and entered the shop, leaving Bayan on the broad wooden walkway.

Not wanting to draw any more attention than he was already getting, Bayan marched back into the flow of traffic, letting his feet carry him toward the city walls while his mind churned, processing what the stranger had said… and what he hadn’t said.
Ordomiro keeps telling me that Lys Coronàles love their intrigue. How subtly they play.

By the time he reached the edge of the circus camp, the evening performance was due to begin soon. Bayan ducked into his tent and draped his outlandish costume over his sturdy frame. Distracted with his heavy thoughts, he waved Wind around his buttons and buckles, fastening them with only half a thought. Once he reached the main arena, he, Sabella, and Ordomiro peeked around the curtain at the sold-out crowd.

Though the evening was warm, Sabella clutched a light but voluminous silk wrap over her minimal costume. She pressed her lithe frame against Bayan and studied the audience, the frown between her brows making her heavy eye makeup seem funereal. “I don’t like it. Don’t you feel it? Something in the way they’re moving.”

Bayan shot a concerned glance at Ordomiro, but his friend showed no concern. “You think there will be trouble tonight?”

Sabella met his eyes with a serious gaze. “Don’t you?”

He blinked. “Did you watch me in town? I didn’t notice you behind me.”

Her frown deepened. “What are you talking about? I didn’t follow you today. I thought you caught up with Ordomiro, and you two were talking.”

Bayan stilled for a moment, then tugged on Sabella’s arm, drawing her aside from the curtain. He lowered his voice to a bare murmur. “A man accosted me on the street today. He said there would be something to see tonight, and that I should meet him afterward. What do you think that means?”

Her painted eyebrows rose. “You? Why you?”

“I think he likes my smile.”

“It is very charming.”

Out on the parapets, Cresconio’s booming voice announced Ordomiro’s act, but the inkmage didn’t immediately step through the curtain. Sabella pressed a hand against Bayan’s arm. “I’ll watch Ordomiro’s performance tonight.”

An unexpected stab of jealousy tweaked Bayan’s heart. “You’re really excited about getting all inked up tonight, aren’t you?”

“I mean it, Bayan. I need to watch.” She stepped away from him, and Ordomiro strode through the curtain, raising his arms to the applause of the audience.

Bayan sighed out his frustration then settled back atop a beribboned barrel to wait his turn.

Before Ordomiro’s act was even halfway through, however, a sudden fracas clanged up outside the arena canvas walls. The spell Ordomiro had cast over the audience cracked, then shattered. Men and women in the arena’s highest seats began glancing over the edge of the canvas wall. Diffuse firelight blossomed through the painted canvas, and Bayan’s stomach clenched.

Rioters
. He clapped a hand on Sabella’s shoulder. She didn’t seem to have noticed the danger yet. “Come on, we have to stop them before they hurt someone.” She didn’t react. He shook her, roughly. “Sabella!”

Startled and dazed, she looked at him in confusion. He pointed to the audience and the approaching torchlight. Her eyes widened. “They’re coming here?
Cal di chon!
”

Bayan called up his magic, too focused to show surprise at Sabella’s bitter curse. He grasped the wooden struts of the arena seats and folded the raised benches outward with swift precision, lowering the panicking villagers to the ground all around the arena and giving them a chance to escape without trampling each other.

As the villagers ran screaming in all directions that didn’t lead to the oncoming mob, a rain of fiery arrows descended from the dark sky. Sabella crossed her ankles, did a quick twirl, and let her arms flow from one side of her body over to the other. Her thin silk wrap fluttered seductively, still managing to conceal the details of her figure, and the arrows changed direction like a flock of birds, then slammed themselves into the open plain between the circus and the nearest terraced hillside.

The earth trembled beneath Bayan’s feet. He stepped onto a wind disc and rose a few strides to get a better look around. A few hundred rebels streamed from the nearby city gate and spread wide, clearly intending to attack the circus and its supplies. Few bothered to attack the fleeing audience members, but Bayan sent his Wind avatar, Shear, to flick a couple maces aside before they reached a fleeing mother and her children. The rumbling ground didn’t seem to affect the rebels as it did the stumbling villagers. Bayan went cold.
They have magic.

Sabella, on her own disc of wind, flew toward the circus wagons as a cluster of rebels spread out into a fan, waving torches. Bayan zoomed across the crowd, trying to pick out the Earthcaster, but he didn’t see anyone drinking from a flask and spitting it forth into magic in the fashion of the Corona casters.

A blast of wind struck Bayan from behind, and he spun to see Sabella swaying on her disc, her silk diaphanous in the dark, flinging wind to extinguish the torches of the rebels before they could set anything alight. He thrust a Wood spell at them, grasping them all from a central protrusion of thick, hairy roots that burst from the ground in their midst and tangled them together.

Distant firelight drew his attention next: a few tents had caught fire. Sabella beat Bayan to the save, creating small, drenching rain clouds over each tent.

“Those guys are not going to be happy that you soaked their belongings,” Bayan called as the pair of them zoomed above the ground toward the last remaining cluster of rebels.

“You know how I like to take things away just so I can give them back and gain new adorers,” was Sabella’s lilting response.

“Yes, but I seem to remember you replaced my sturdy pants with flimsy silk ones.”

Her smile broadened. “You didn’t need them until morning, anyway.”

A wedge of rioters sans torches had sneaked into the center of the circus camp while the other groups drew more attention. In the moment before Bayan could grab them with more vines, a bright ring of incandescent heat blasted out from around the men, setting even the grass alight. The heat’s intensity was so great that Bayan spun away from it on sheer instinct.

At about a thousand strides above the ground, Bayan used Shear to reestablish his air disc. He had a spectacular view of the destruction of the entire circus. Everything was aflame. Tiny figures fled the light, heading for the terraced hills. Bayan flung Lifeseeker through the sky, searching for Sabella, but he didn’t find her airborne. He tilted his disc downward in a speedy descent, intent on sucking the heat from the fire and extinguishing it all at once, but a sudden shock wave from behind threw him tumbling once more, bringing with it a terrible roar.

Shaken, Bayan barely regained his wind disc in time to avoid falling directly into the inferno. He rose on its thermals and looked behind him over the orange-lit terraces of the nearest hill.

The steel smeltery had exploded. Great billows of smoke—incandescent orange below and looming black above—rose and angled into the wind above its fiery corpse. Raging, molten heat reached Bayan even at his distance from the inferno.

“Bayan! Bayan!”

He whirled at the sound of Sabella’s voice, thin on the wind. Their discs met in midair, and he clasped her hands in relief. “Are you all right? Are you hurt? Did you see what happened?”

She shook her head impatiently. “None of that matters. I can’t find Ordomiro. You must help me, before the
centineles
come.”

Bayan squinted at her in incomprehension. “Ordomiro is still at the circus. I just saw him. Did you see the explosion? Is it the rioters?”

Sabella’s delicate hands clenched hard around Bayan’s wrists. “You’re not listening. Ordomiro wasn’t at the circus. Just his magic.” She let go with one hand and tugged the voluminous wrap free, exposing her skin to the chill, bitter, smoky air.

In the distant light of the dying smeltery, Bayan spotted swirls of black ink across her shoulders and chest. “Ordomiro already painted you? Why?”

“Help me find him, quickly! If the
centineles
find him amongst the rioters, they’ll kill him.”

“Let’s get this done.” Tarin launched herself into Taban’s arms, backing him against the cool stone wall beside his bed. He caught her against his chest and bent until his lips met her warm ones. She moaned and parted them for him, sliding her tongue along his, while her fingers clawed their way through his tousled black hair. She took a half step back, drawing him after her, then lunged forward again, pressing him even harder against the wall. His hand slipped up under her light cotton shirt and found his favorite spot, the curve where her buttocks met her back. He pulled her hips against his. She broke off the kiss, knotted her fists in the open collar of his tunic, and hurled him onto the bed. He fashioned a buffer of air so his head didn’t slam against the wall, and a second later, she pounced upon him like a tigress, all orange heat and passion.

“Sints, Tarin, are you sure you need—”

“Shut it, Taban, and kiss me again. My duel starts as soon as my client reaches the arena next door.” Her face loomed into focus, then nearer, unfocused again, and her teeth closed on his lower lip. Nibbling, she stretched it, then tasted it with her tongue.

Taban groaned at the hot need rocketing up within him. His hands found her long red hair and tangled in it, straining. It must have hurt, but he knew she liked it. She bit at his earlobe, laughing.

“Don’t you dare be anima hexing me right now, wench,” he growled into her ear. “I’ll tell your
tegen
all your secrets.”

“Will not. I’m facing Sange, and you like her even less than I do.” She rocked against him, the heat of her breasts burning through the thin fabric of her tunic.

Taban reached for her neckline. “If you don’t magic away those clothes, I’ll have to owe you a new set.”

Tarin’s blue eyes went wide with outrage. “Don’t you dare, Taban Solahan. This tunic was a gift!”

Taban knew from whom. The specter of Tarin’s true lover, the eunuch Kipri Nayuuti, filled the room, flooding Taban with an agonizing mix of guilt and fear amidst the lust that throbbed hot within him.

A sharp, urgent knock rapped on Taban’s door. “Tarin! Head Duelist Orgaw is taking that deep breath. You know what’ll happen if she starts to let it back out. Hurry up in there!”

Tarin bared her teeth in frustration and glared toward the door, then glanced down at where her body pressed hot against Taban’s. “So close!”

She eased back and hopped off with a single, lithe motion, leaving his skin to chill where they’d touched. Only when she reached the door did she seem to remember him. “You’ll be all right?”

Taban sat up, grimacing against the hot stiffness that hampered his motion. “Aye, aye. But you’re the one with a duel. You’re focused now?”

Tarin struck a favorite pose, arching her back, lifting her chin, and tossing her head so that her long, straight red hair swayed out behind her in dramatic fashion. She favored him with a brilliant smile. “The Mistress of Flame is about to claim all the ducats.” She flung open the door and disappeared at a jog down the hallway toward the arena sand, leaving Taban with nothing but erotic thoughts.

“Damn that wench. Always running off just a fraction too soon.” He shot a cool glance toward the door, slammed it shut, and turned the lock.
No matter. I can be sitting on a cloud soon, watching her duel from above. There’s just this one thing I need to take care of first.
He flopped back, spread eagle, atop his coverlet, released the ties on his trousers, and willed a warm swirl of water to bend his way.

Soon enough, Taban stepped into the thick, hot sunshine that already plagued the southern Nunaa city of Kwaranaak. Feeling markedly refreshed and relaxed, he summoned up his favorite mode of transportation: a water hexling. The construct was formed of a circular, translucent pool of water supported by currents of wind. He stepped atop the skin of water and willed it up into the sky over the arena.

Though he tried not to draw attention to himself, eventually someone noticed him hovering high overhead. Tarin knew well enough not to be distracted by his presence during her duels, but her opponents were not always so focused. Head Duelist Orgaw wasn’t pleased with Taban’s antics, but his presence over the arena during duels and Tarin’s presence during his own worked like an advertising flag for the duel den’s services, so she couldn’t really complain.

And a fine Dunfarroghan like myself wouldn’t let such a beneficial avatar serve merely one purpose, now would I? Of course not.
He sprawled on his stomach atop the skin of water and looked through its protective surface as Tarin turned Sange’s Water avatar into a frenetic steam cloud. He smiled, enjoying the respite before his own meeting across town.
So many canny folk enjoy being in business with a powerful elementalist like myself, it’s practically a crime not to trade with them. Even Philo canna complain about my ducat hoard, since my choicest information tidbits find their way into his pockets.

Below, Tarin made a mad leap to avoid the sudden chasm Sange’s shiny iron Earth avatar created directly beneath her feet. To the spectators, it probably looked like a leap of desperation, but Taban knew Tarin had used a little Wind assist in her escape—a tiny hexling no one aside from Tarin and Taban could create. As soon as Tarin landed, the chasm bubbled with magma that melted Sange’s avatar into a gleaming puddle. A hovering sphere of lava appeared over Sange’s head, and she took a knee, raising her hands in surrender.

“That’s me girl.” Taban grinned and willed his airborne hexling to turn toward the west side of town. He waggled from side to side for a moment in acknowledgment of Tarin’s victory and saw her avatar raise its flaming arm in reply.

His avatar spun in lazy circles high above the city, and he waved to shopkeepers and bands of small street urchins as they called out excitedly at the sight of him.
It’s not the worst life I could have, servicing the wench who wipes the sand with everyone else in our duel den. Alas that Tarin’s true lover is the second most powerful eunuch in the whole empire. If I were in his wig, I’d have offed me long ago. He only lets me live because my tender services keep Tarin alive on the dueling sand. Much as I enjoy sweet company, given my druthers, I’d wish her fixed. She’s a powerful savant, but there’s something off in her head, and it hasna gotten better despite all her savantism training.

His clear pool swung its way down around a rug and mat emporium, and he hopped off in a sandy alley whose pale walls reflected both light and heat. He let his water hexling dissipate, then headed around the corner into an adjoining alley and slipped onto a low wooden stool beside a young woman with curly blond hair, a tabletop full of small vials, and a fresh green awning shading her.

“Top of the morning to ye, Mynike. How are your sales this day?” He flashed her an easy smile.

The young potioneer managed to meet his gaze for a brief moment before dropping it to her tabletop and smiling subconsciously. “My sales, they aren’t too bad today. The Lady Akamaas, she came by for a whole jar of Passion Spice. Nunaa parties, I hear they get rather wild.” She briefly scratched her left shoulder above a fresh new bandage that covered the stump of her arm.

There, but for the sints, go I.
Taban suppressed a shiver. “That they can. I’ve no doubt in me whatsoever that someday soon, you’ll get a peek at one yourself, my lass. You’ve the smile for many an invitation. Now, did you have the chance to pick up that item I’m interested in?”

Before she could answer, a gaggle of urchins ran up, calling Taban’s name. Mynike shrank on her stool and looked down, silent. Taban knew how the urchins would have teased her had he not been sitting right beside her. Potioneers were fair game for everyone, even slaves or homeless street children. The sticky-fingered rats held their grimy hands out to him and chirped their requests for money.

Taban leaned an elbow onto the potioneer’s table and gave them all the squint eye. “Canna you see, me sprites, I’m talking to the lady here? Be off with you, now. And no more of the pestering, or I’ll hear of it.” He flicked his fingers to scatter them down the alley, and ducats appeared midair, tumbling to puff against the unpaved road before being snatched up by dirty fingers.

The miniature gang scampered off, and Mynike looked up at Taban with admiring brown eyes. “My thanks, you have them. You’re a good man. And I do have your item.” She scanned the alley for watching eyes, then reached into an old leather sack by her feet and pulled out a small, wax-sealed wooden box.

She placed it on the table, and Taban picked it up, hefting its weight. A trickle of Wood magic allowed him to confirm its contents. His denmates would surely appreciate the subtle bribe for their continued silence regarding… Well, regarding just about everything Taban was doing.
But what they don’t miss, they canna accuse me of stealing
.

He parted the wax seal with a crack of air and lifted the lid, then held the open box toward Mynike.

Her hand rose then hesitated. “For me? Are you sure it’s all right?” He flicked his eyebrows at her, and her hand darted inside the box with a quick, birdlike motion, bringing up a chocolate-coated rum date. It vanished inside her mouth in a blink. Taban smiled at the look of ecstasy that scrolled across her face as she enjoyed the rare Akkeraad treat.

“Oi, you think I could have one of those?” came a thin, reedy, familiar voice tinged with entitlement: Scuff. Taban’s good mood wilted, and he threw an exasperated look at the ne’er-do-well with his scraggly, thin dark hair and his gap-toothed grin. The man’s odor overpowered even the rum and chocolate wafting up from the box.

“That depends, Scuff. What do you have to trade me for it?” Hopefully, it wouldn’t be another dead cat with six toes on each foot, which were neither lucky nor magical, or some noblewoman’s lost pearl earring—Taban had had to think quickly to get himself unarrested last time that had happened.

Scuff leaned forward, grimy palms pressing down on Mynike’s table. His face brightened in eager anticipation. “Oh, yes, your duelship, sir, got a nice bit of intelligence today. Might be worth two or even three of those dates. But I’ll let you decide how you value it.” Scuff gave him a judicious nod, as if between equals.

Taban kept his face impassive. “Let’s have it, then.”

Scuff bobbed his head in a quick nod. “Right, then. I heard tell from the breadwife over in the Blossom Market that some wagoneers had just pulled into town, delivering her husband’s flowers, and they’d heard from the well-watcher in one of the small villages along their route that some hunters had spotted, way up north, some sort of fellows wot was lurking in the woods. Nasty types, too. Not to be messed with by us average folks. More your type of scoundrels, methinks.” Scuff gave him a knowing nod.

The only thing Scuff loves more than free food is a good conspiracy.
Taban frowned and looked away, but Mynike touched his arm.

“This fellow, he’s the same who told you about that jewelry scam in the Spice Quarter? His information, it got two potioneers saved from punishment.” She favored Scuff with a soft smile. “They were my friends. Thank you.”

Taban swallowed an irritated grumble and pushed the box toward Scuff with his fingertips. “Go on, then. But just one, mind you. I’ll have a look at your forest monsters, but if I don’t find an army of freakishly grotesque demons out there, it’s you who will be owing me.”

Scuff’s hand jabbed down into the box with lightning speed, but Taban was no fool when it came to Scuff’s tricks. He snagged the man’s wrist with a grip of Wind and shook it, catching the second rum date as it fell from his stunned fingers. “I suggest you exercise your heels, tricksy bastard.”

Scuff gave him a wide-eyed nod, then darted off, the rum date already bulging inside his cheek. Taban stood. “I’d best save the rest of these before I get mobbed and scare away all your customers.” He sealed the wax around the lid once more and tucked the box under his arm. “How is your training? Any trouble adjusting?”

Mynike leapt to her feet and rested her good arm across her middle. “Oh, no. No trouble at all. I can’t tell you how much it means to me to continue my training in any way whatsoever. I’m so grateful, so very grateful to you, for everything you’ve done for me. I owe you my life, because if you hadn’t found me—if you hadn’t introduced me to Potioneer Odjin—I would have died inside. And then probably outside. You saved me. Anything you need, you just ask.
Anything
.”

Her pupils dilated for a moment, and Taban took her full meaning. He smiled, taking in her tousled blond curls in a new way. Then he leaned in and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “You keep up with your work, blend in, don’t get noticed. But if anyone interferes with you, tell me. I mean it. You’re one of my assets now. It’s my job to look after you and keep you safe. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some tiresome and likely irrelevant exploring to do, thanks to that sticky-fingered lout.”

Mynike offered him a fond farewell, and Taban took to the skies. He reached the wilderness bordering Nunaa feeling windblown and grumpy, but he soon spotted an anomaly in the hilly forests below. Worse, it seemed to have no source or trail. Judging by the size of the disturbed soil, Taban knew he wasn’t going to be demanding any favor repayment from Scuff anytime soon.