Storm Season- - Thieves World 04 (15 page)

He'd run away before the sun rose on that night-and was still running. Now he was running back to Sanctuary.

2

Walegrin patted his horse, ignoring the cloud of dust around them both. Everything, everyone was covered with a fine layer of desert grit; only his hair seemed unaffected, but then it had always been the color of parched straw. He'd led his men safely across the desert to Sanctuary but weariness had settled upon them like dust and though the end of their travels was in sight, they waited in silence for Thrusher's return.

Walegrin had not dared to enter the city himself. Tall, pale despite the desert sun, his braided hair roughly confined by a bronze band, he was too memorable to be an advance scout. He was an outlaw as well, wanted by the prince for abandoning the garrison without warning. He had Kilite's pardon, the scrolls still carefully sealed in his saddlebag, but using it would eventually let Kilite know he was still alive. It was better to remain an outlaw. Hook-nosed, diminutive Thrusher was a man no-one would remember. Able and single-minded, he'd never run afoul of the town's dangers nor succumb to its limited temptations. Walegrin would have a roof over his men's heads by nightfall and more water than they could drink to set before them. Wine too, but Walegrin had almost forgotten the taste of wine.

As the afternoon shadows lengthened, Thrusher appeared on the dunes. Walegrin waved him safe conduct. He put his heels to his horse and galloped the last stretch of sand. Both man and beast had been cleansed of yellow grit. Walegrin suppressed a pang of jealousy.

"Ho, Thrush! Do we sleep in town tonight?" one of the other men called.

"With full trenchers and a wench on each knee," Thrusher laughed.

"By the gods, I thought we're bound for Sanctuary, not paradise."

"Paradise enough-if a man's not choosy," Thrusher told them all as he dismounted and made his way to Walegrin.

"You seem satisfied. Is the town that much changed since we left it?" Walegrin asked.

"Yes, that much. You'd think the Nisibisi rode this way. There are more mercenaries in Sanctuary than in Ranke. We'll never be noticed. The usual scum fears to leave the shadows-and if a man knows how to use his sword there's any number who'll hire him. Kittycat's gold hasn't been the best for many a month now. He's got to rely on a citizen's militia to take up the slack from the Hell Hounds. Wrigglies-every last one of them: pompous and-"

"What manner of mercenaries?" Walegrin interrupted.

"Sacred Banders," Thrusher admitted with noticible reluctance.

"Vashanka's bastards. How many? And who leads them-if they're led by a man?"

"Couldn't say how many; they camp Downwind. Banders're worse than Hounds; a handful of 'em's worse than a plague. Some say they belong to the Prince now that their priest's dead. Most say it's Tempus at the root of it. They train for the Nisibisi, but Tempus is building a new fortress Downwind." Walegrin looked away. He had no quarrel with Tempus Thales. True, he was inclined to arrogance, sadism and he was treachery incarnate, but he moved in the elite circles of power and, as such, Walegrin could only admire him. Like everyone else he had heard the Tempus-tales of self-healing and psuedo-divinity; he professed to doubt them-but had Tempus gone in search of Enlibar steel, no one would have dared stand in his way.

"They call themselves Stepson-or something like that," Thrusher continued.

"They're all in Jubal's turf; and neither hide nor hair of Jubal seen these last months. No hawkmasks on the streets either, 'cept the ones found nailed to posts here and there."

"Sacred Banders; Stepsons; Whoresons." Walegrin shared the prejudices of most in the Imperial army towards any elite, separate group. Sanctuary had been the dead-end of the world as long as anyone could remember. No right-thinking Rankan citizen passed time there. It boded ill if Sanctuary had become home to not only Tempus but a contingent of Sacred Banders as well. The Empire was in worse shape than anyone thought.

What was bad for Sanctuary and all of Ranke, though, was not necessarily bad for the re-discoverer of Enlibar steel. With luck Walegrin would find good men in town, or good gold, or simply enough activity to hide behind. But whenever Walegrin thought of luck he thought of the S'danzo. They had marked him for ill fortune: if he had good luck it could have been better and when his luck turned sour, the less said about it the better.

"What about that house I asked you about?" Walegrin asked after the conversation had lulled a moment.

The scout was relieved to speak of something else. "No trouble-it wasn't hidden, though no-one knew much about it. Right off the Street of Armorers, like you said it'd be. This metal-master, Balustrus, he must be a pretty strange fellow. Everyone thought he'd died until the Torch-" Thrusher stopped abruptly, slapping himself on the forehead.

"-Gods takes take me for an idiot! Nothing is the same in Sanctuary; the gods have discovered it! Vashanka's name was blasted from the pantheon over the palace gate. Vashanka! Sacred Band's Storm God burned clean. The stone steamed for a day and a night. The god himself appeared in the sky-and Azyuna, too."

"Wrigglies? Magicians? Were the Whoresons involved?" Walegrin asked, but without interrupting the flow of Thrusher's theological gossip.

"The Torch himself was nearly killed. Some say a new god's been born to the First Consort and the War of Cataclysm's begun. Officially the priests are blaming everything on the Nisibisi-and not saying why the Nisibisi would wage magical war in Sanctuary. The Wrigglies say it's the awakening of Ils Thousand Eyes. And the mages don't say much of anything because half of them're dead and the rest hiding. The local doomsayers're making fortunes.

"But our Prince Kittycat, bless his empty, little head, had an idea. He marches out on his balcony and proclaims that Vashanka is angry because Sanctuary does not show proper respect to his consort and her child and that he has blasted his own name off the pantheon rather than be associated with the town. Then Kittycat proclaims a tax on every tavern-a copper a tot-and says he's going to make an offering to Vashanka. Sanctuary will apologize by ringing a new bell!" Walegrin empathized with Sanctuary's naive, blundering young governor. Actually his idea wasn't bad; much better than involving the mageguild or setting the Wrigglies against the outnumbered Rankans. That was Kittycat's problem; his ideas weren't half bad, but he wasn't even half the man it would take to have people listen to them without laughing.

A new idea grew in Walegrin's thoughts. The Prince had turned to Balustrus, metal-master, to cast the bell for Vashanka. Now he, Walegrin, would approach Balustrus to make Enlibar steel-for the Prince, perhaps, but not Vashanka. A pattern of fortune might emerge-might be stronger than the S'danzo curse. He imagined himself with the Prince; the two of them together might make one irresistable force.

"Did you see this bell of the metal-master's? Is it worthy?" he asked Thrusher.

"Worthy of what?" Thrusher replied, not following Walegrin's thoughts at all. 3

Dawn's first light pierced the shadows and sent the denizens of the night scurrying. The streets of Sanctuary were almost quiet. Flocks of seabirds wheeled silently over the town, swooping suddenly as, one after another, the houses opened their doors to jettison nightslops into the street. A cowled, burdened monk slipped out the upper window of a tavern and disappeared down a still-dark alley. The brief moment of calm magic faded; the day had begun. The establishment ofBalustrus, metal-master, was among the first in the armorer's quarter to come to life. A young woman opened the upper half of the front door and struggled to raise the huge, dingy slops-ewer to her shoulder. She froze, nearly dropping the noisome thing, when a man stepped out of the shadows. He wore a monk's garb, but the cowl had fallen back to his shoulders. A warrior's tore held his straw-blond hair over his brow. Walegrin had had three days' rest and washed the desert from his face, but he was still an ominous figure. The woman gave a small yelp when he took the ewer from her and carried it some distance before upending it. When he returned to the doorway, the metal-master himself stood there.

"Walegrin, isn't it?"

If the young soldier was ominous, then Balus-trus was positively demonic. His skin was the color of mottled bronze-not brown, nor gold, nor green-nor human at all. It was wrinkled like dried fruit, but shone like metal itself. He was hairless, with features that blended into the convolutions of his skin. When he smiled, as he smiled at Walegrin, the dark eyes all but vanished. Walegrin swallowed hard. "I've come with business for you."

"So early?" the bronze man chided. "Well, come right in. A soldier in monk's cloth is always welcome for breakfast." He hobbled back from the door. Walegrin retrieved his sack and followed him into the shop. A single oil lamp set over a counting-table cast flickering shadows on the metal-master's face. He rested a pair of iron crutches against the wall behind the table and seemed to hover there, unsupported. Walegrin's eyes adjusted to the dimmer light. He saw the price sheets nailed to the wall and the samples of bronze, iron, tin and steel; he saw the saddle-like perch in which the metal-master sat. But his first impression of the eerie place did not change and he would have left if he could.

"Tell me what you've got in your sack, and why I should care?" the metal-master demanded.

Forcing himself not to stare, Walegrin hoisted the sack to the table-top. "I've found the secret of the steel of Enlibar-"

The bronze man shook with laughter. "What secret? There's no secret to Enlibar steel, my boy. Any fool can make Enlibar steel-if he's got Enlibar ore and Ilsig alchemy."

Walegrin untied the sack, dumping the blue-green ore onto the table. Balustrus stopped laughing. He snatched up a chunk of ore and subjected it to an analysis that included not merely striking it with a mallet, but tasting it as well.

"Yes," the wizened metal-master crooned. "This is it. Heated and ground and tempered this will be steel! Not since the last alchemist of Ilsig sank into his grave has there been steel like the steel I will make." Whatever else Balustrus was, he was at least mad. Walegrin had first heard the name in the library at Coombs, where he'd gotten the shard of Enlibrite pottery Illyra had read. Kemren, the Purple Mage, had been supposed to read the inscription and Balustrus would make the steel and both men swell in Sanctuary. Kemren had been dead when Walegrin arrived in the city, but not Balustrus. It was said the metal-master had been mad when he first came to the city, and Sanctuary had never improved anyone. He claimed he knew everything about any metal but he made his living mending plates and recasting stolen gold.

"I have another ten sacks like this one," Walegrin explained, taking back the ore. "I want swords for my men and myself. I don't have much gold; and fewer friends, but I'll give you a quarter of my ore if you'll make the swords." He continued refilling his sack.

"It will be my priviledge," the cripple agreed, touching the stones one last time before they disappeared. "Perhaps when you have the swords you'll tell me where you found this. At least you'll tell what friends you have that it was the Grey Wolf who forged their weapons."

"You've no need to know where the mine is," Walegrin said firmly, looking directly at Balustrus' legs. "You couldn't go there yourself. You'd have to send others; you'd spread my secret around. Already too many people know." The sack thumped to the floor. "When can I have my swords?" The metal-master shrugged. "It is not like telling a cloth-cutter to make a tunic, boy. The formula is old; the ore is new. It will take time. I must melt and grind carefully; tempering is an art to itself. It could take years." Walegrin's blue eyes came alive with anger. "It will not take years! There's war in the north. Already the Emperor has called for men to fill the legions. I will have my swords by summer's end or I'll have your life."

"I have," the metal-master said with bitter irony, "been threatened by experts. You'll have your swords, my boy, as soon as I'm ready to give them to you." The blond soldier had a ready reply, but withheld it as commotion rose in the street and someone hammered loudly on the bolted doors.

"Open up! Open up in the Prince's name! Open your doors, merchant!" Walegrin snatched up the sack. He glanced around the room, aware for the first time that it offered no hiding places.

"You look as if you'd seen a ghost, boy. If you don't want to see the Prince's man, just step behind the curtain. Take your ore with you. I'll be but a moment with these fools."

Unable to force coherent words through his tight throat, Walegrin simply nodded and, still clutching the sack, eased behind a curtain and into a dark passageway. He could see narrowly into the room he had left without, he prayed, being seen in return.

Balustrus struggled with the heavy bolts. He got the door open just before the Prince's man threatened to break it down. Three men immediately surged past: two huge brutes in dirty rags and a third man in common dress.

"Balustrus? Metal-master?" the third man demanded. The man might be dressed commonly, but he wasn't common. Once Walegrin's suspicions were aroused, other incongruities became obvious: clean, fresh-curled hair; sturdy boots with gold buckles; hands that had never been truly dirty. Unreasoning fear gripped him. He did not pause to wonder why a Rankan lord, for such the visitor must be, would enter the metal-master's shop in such a disguise; he knew. The S'danzo curse and his false friends in Ranke had merged. By sundown he'd be just so much meat on the torturer's rack. They'd have his secrets, his steel and, if he got lucky, his life.

". . .It has cooled without a crack," Balustrus said when Walegrin had regained enough control over his fear to listen again.