Ashley McConnell
“My lord, goodmen, and goodwife,” the man at the podium said, leaning forward to glare at his audience. That audience, consisting of the two masters Vettazen and Firaloy, and the three apprentices sitting at the end of the bench against the wall, shifted uneasily.
My lord? Jazen thought, glancing over at Adri-nes. The man had definitely nodded in Adri’s direction when he said it. Adri, for his part, leaned back, as if the bench actually had something to lean against, and returned only a polite, noncommittal smile. He, Meleas, and Jazen were not supposed to be important enough to acknowledge here.
“My lord the Chancellor has received your petition and has been pleased to send me today to review it. But I must tell you I am not inclined to recommend that he support it.”
“And why might that be?” Vettazen, seated at the far end of the high table, asked mildly. “Ser Immatus, the petition is entirely in order. In form and content it is entirely unexceptional. It follows several such petitions point by point, each of which were approved without challenge or …” she paused delicately, “review.” Next to her, Firaloy nodded in emphatic agreement. “We seek to study magic, to organize those with the gifts, to better understand them.”
Immatus tore his attention away from Adri with difficulty. “Oh. Well, it is simplicity itself, Goodwife. In form I must agree, your petition for establishment of a Guild of your own is entirely unexceptional. But in content? No. I cannot agree. It is filled with nonsense, errors obvious to the merest child!
“My lord, Gentles, you are applying for a Guild Charter to study magic.”
“Yes?” Vettazen encouraged. “As I said.” You idiot, she did not add, though Jazen could hear the words in her tone.
Apparently Immatus could not. “But there is no need to study magic. We know the origins and source of all magic in the world. We have always known. Magic is demonic. It comes from the Yaan Maat. We do not need to study magic, we need to destroy it, whenever and wherever we find it, just as we destroyed the Yaan Maat. We do not need a Guild for that.”
It sounded very firm and definitive, which made Immatus’s yelp of surprise even funnier when one of the workmen at the other end of the room knocked over a scaffold holding up several buckets of plaster. Everyone jumped, in fact, and Vettazen closed her eyes and murmured something that goodwives probably shouldn’t say in the hearing of imperial courtiers. Jazen smothered a laugh and got up to help the workmen try to limit the spread of the plaster on the stone floor.
No one else joined him. He didn’t expect them to; it was the kind of work he was used to, and he doubted any of the rest of them had ever worked with their hands before. Well, Meleas, perhaps, but if it didn’t involve animals, Meleas had no interest in it. Sweeping up dry plaster didn’t involve animals.
On the other end of the room, Immatus was valiantly trying to regain both his composure and his control of the conversation, but Vettazen had taken advantage of the interruption. “Ser Immatus, is this recommendation the result of your own researches? Are you familiar with the studies of magic in foreign lands? Have you seen magic done?”
Immatus snorted. “I should hope I have not, Goodwife! Nor, may I say, have you, unless you are confessing to being possessed by a demon! As for magic in foreign lands, it is clear to the meanest intelligence that if the Yaan Maat could invade our own empire of Miralat, they could equally do so elsewhere. Any magic anywhere in the world is the work of those demons. And the Yaan Maat have been defeated.” From around his neck, he pulled out a red velvet bag, opened it, and shook the contents out on the table. Pieces of what looked like ivory—shards and scraps, a couple almost the size of Jazen’s palm—poured out on the table before him. Vettazen leaned forward and reached out for one of the larger pieces, but Immatus spread his hand over them protectively, preventing her. “Yes, Goodwife, these are mataals. Broken, all of them. This is all that remains of the Yaan Maat.” He swept them back into the bag and tucked it under his tunic. “I carry these to honor my own family who fought and died in those wars. I know whereof I speak.”
More than two hundred years before, the Yaan Maat had appeared in what was now the Empire of Miralat. They had possessed the Emperor, all his Court, wreaked devastation across the land. They had brought magic the likes of which no human had ever seen, power like that of the sun itself. Wide stretches of the Empire were still called the Burned Lands, the Waste. More than a million had died before humanity had discovered the link between the carved white plaques and the demons—and how to destroy them—before the current Emperor’s great-grandsire had taken the throne away from the usurpers.
“This is exactly why we need to study magic. That is how your mataals were broken! By human magic!”
Immatus glared at her. “There is no human magic, Goodwife.”
There was a little silence. Then Vettazen said, “Lord Lasvennat has been very interested in our work.” Lasvennat was high in the councils of the Emperor, Jazen knew.
Immatus swallowed. “Lord Lasvennat is not the only voice on the Council, and the Chancellor agrees with me.”
Adri-nes cleared his throat.
Jazen glanced back to see Vettazen’s lips press together, hard, her head quivering in a “No.”
Immatus didn’t see it. “My lord?” he said. Jazen could almost hear the oil oozing from his lips. “Did you wish to add something?”
Adri coughed, glanced at Vettazen, and said, “Why, no. Just clearing my throat, Ser.”
“I had the great pleasure of speaking to your lord father just the other day,” Immatus went on. “He is looking forward to seeing you again soon.”
“Is he,” Adri said. He turned then and looked straight at Vettazen. “When my teachers give me leave, I will be very glad to visit him.”
Oh ho, Jazen thought. But Adri could go home again; presumably so might Meleas, although he’d never heard the blond boy talk about his family. If Adri’s father, someone who had influence at Court and in the Chamberlain’s office, spoke against the petition for a charter, where would he, Jazen, go?
He couldn’t go back to Smattac, the village he’d abandoned to follow Vettazen and her little party to Mirlacca. Back in Smattac he was nothing more than a bastard forge boy, indentured for life to bellows and hammer, ever afraid someone might see something, accuse him of something. He wasn’t even safe here, because truly, magic was demonic, and no one here really knew what kinds of things happened around him. He sneezed as the plaster puffed up in a cloud.
“Your teachers?” Immatus was saying incredulously. “My lord, you had the best tutors in the Empire! There is nothing these … gentles … can teach an heir to one of the Great Houses of Miralat!”
“Seventh heir,” Adri said mildly. He would not call Firaloy and Vettazen his “masters,” not before Immatus.
But that is what they were, Jazen thought. Just as he, Adri and Meleas were their apprentices. He had accepted that as soon as he had understood what these strange visitors to Belzec’s forge in Smattac were all about.
Meleas was very good with animals of all kinds, true; Adri tried to write spells, but cheerfully claimed to have absolutely no magic of his own whatsoever; but as for Jazen—Jazen thought Immatus was right. Magic was demonic. He had seen the demons himself, in the forge of Smattac—the little red figures walking along the molten metal, dancing in the blazing coals. They even flared up in his own footsteps when he was tired and angry and discouraged. He knew demons were real. And all you could do with demons was destroy them.
“That will be enough,” said Vettazen. Beside her, the other proto-Master of the Guild-to-be, her lifemate Firaloy, nodded. Adri slipped back into the role of an apprentice.
“I will return, if you please, in one week, to see if you have anything to add to your petition.” It was clear Immatus, who was gathering together his scrolls and sheets of vellum, thought this unlikely. Firaloy and Vettazen were talking quietly to each other. The three young men glanced at each other and, coming to silent consensus that they were free to leave, got up.
As soon as they were outside the building and around the corner, headed toward the stables, Adri stopped and the veneer of a nobleman fell away as he sagged against the wall. He looked as if he wasn’t sure he could stand on his own two feet. “I hate them,” he said passionately.
“Who?” Meleas asked, as always the voice of reason itself.
“Courtiers. That evil little toe-sucker wants to gain credit with my father by telling him I spoke to him about returning home.” Adri waved an impatient hand. “I’m a seventh son. I’m not needed for anything, my father didn’t even have enough titles to give to all of us. I am nobody, but they refuse to see it.”
Meleas snorted, but didn’t pursue the argument.
“And I will not allow that little toady to quash that petition and prevent us from forming a Guild. Or make me a puppet in his Court games.” For a moment Adri looked like a noble, again. Then he let loose a great sigh and was once again a man who had not reached his eighteenth year, one who felt helpless in the hands of other people and their machinations.
Jazen could sympathize. And yet—
“Why is it so important, this Charter?” he asked hesitantly. It was the kind of question that marked him as a country fool, he knew. So far the others had been patient with him, but there were times when he could feel them being patient with him, too.
This was one of those times.
“If we have a Charter for a Guild, of Exorcists or Sorcerers or whatever they plan to call it,” Adri said, waving away the details, “then the Masters can assess fees from every member.”
Jazen swallowed. “I cannot pay fees.”
“None of us can, yet,” Meleas assured him hastily. “But if we gain a reputation for knowing about magic, for being able to deal with demons for instance, we can charge for it, and some of that money will come back to the Guild. And in exchange, we get certain rights and are free of some taxes. We can set standards so people will know the value of what they pay for and discipline those who would cheat others, like false hedge witches and fortunetellers. It will make magic respectable.”
Jazen blinked. Magic—respectable? “But how can demons be respectable?”
“That’s the rub. If Immatus is right and all magic comes from the Yaan Maat, we might as well all just march into a bonfire and have done with it. But our masters say it isn’t.”
“And that’s likely what Immatus hates most,” Adri said dryly. “He probably gets some kickback from the taxes on kindling and stakes.”
“Oh,” Jazen said. The other two, heads together, headed back into the main building.
He wasn’t sure yet that Adri-nes and Meleas were friends, exactly. He had never had friends in Smattac; people didn’t make friends with clanless bastards.
But there were times, over the past month or so, that he’d begun to feel almost accepted. And now, in an odd way, perhaps he had something in common with them, if the masters thought he had a place here too. He was still nobody, but at least within these walls he was included in Adri’s class of nobody. Although Adri’s definition of “nobody” included more silk tunics than Jazen’s did.
But if there was no Charter, and no Guild, then what?
Now that he knew where the metalworkers’ quarter was, he had a chance to find work, if this Charter wasn’t approved. He wasn’t sure what Meleas would do—something with animals, doubtless—but clearly Adri-nes would simply go home again. It just didn’t sound as if “home” was the bright comfortable place it ought to be, for a seventh son.
Ever since he had left Smattac, Jazen had carried in his pouch the iyiza he’d stolen from Belzec. It was a thick bundle of sheets of metal, tied together with wire. Each sheet was near half a finger-joint thick, half as long as his hand, and there were at least a dozen of them. It was heavy, even heavier than it looked. Belzec had never tried to make anything from the iyiza, but Jazen could. And today, perhaps—
He stopped by the kitchen house to beg bread and cheese and an apple from the cook. “Sit and eat here,” she said briskly. “And before you go wherever you’re going, get me some water.” She glanced at the sky and sighed. “After it changes back.”
Jazen nodded and sat down. It was nearly noon, and the fountains would change soon. Every day, as a reminder of the battles with the Yaan Maat, the fountains of Mirlacca ran with blood—human blood, they said, although he did not know how they could tell. He had been shocked, the first day he had seen it. Now he, like the rest of the city, had accepted the phenomena with resignation and eventually, indifference.
“Jazen! There you are. I have something for you.” Adri, still looking upset, slid onto the kitchen bench beside him and filched a piece of bread.
Jazen, mouth full, lifted an eyebrow.
“It’s a working,” Adri said, with the slightly embarrassed look he always had when he talked about what he did. He had no magic of his own, he insisted, but he read everything the masters had and haunted shops looking for old books. Exploring Mirlacca with Adri was an exercise in strained eyes and sneezing. And Adri was always doing what he called “workings,” attempts to create spells. The first time he had spoken of it before the masters Jazen had been shocked speechless. Such talk would have had him burned in Smattac as a demon, but instead it was the reason the … lord’s son … was one of their community.
Was it only a month since they had told him, with straight faces, that Firaloy and Vettazen were only collecting stories and tales about magic and the Yaan Maat?
And Jazen had believed them?
“I know you work with metal,” Adri was saying. “Try this, with the herbs, and, um, a drop of two of your blood. When you quench.”
Jazen laughed. “Only a drop or two?”
Adri smiled and shrugged. “I don’t know if it would work, but it might make something … useful.”
Jazen nodded and thrust the paper into his pouch, where it crumpled against the iyiza. Did Adri know what he wanted to do with the bundle of metal?
“Well, perhaps I’ll go see.”
Adri smiled and shrugged again, staring at the fireplace on the opposite wall. “Will you let me know?” There was a trace of yearning in his voice.
“I will.” Jazen got up and walked away, leaving the lord’s son behind him.
* * *
He had marked this place on his first solo trip into the depths of the city. It was a small shop, with a forge in the courtyard in the back where customers were not welcome, but something about it drew him. The sign over the door showed an anvil and a hammer; the shop could have been for anything made of metal. This time he went inside. Bells rang as he stepped through the door, startling him. The interior was lit by half a dozen lamps backed with reflectors, making it brighter than the overcast sky outside.
An array of knives were displayed on the inner counter, under the watchful eye of an old man. A stack of cups was arranged beside them. A set of spoons of varying sizes occupied a shallow basin. A boar spear and a war axe were propped casually behind the counter. It was an interesting, varied array of goods. There were no horseshoes anywhere.
Jazen was pulled to the knives as if drawn by chains.
Two of the knives were long, double-edged, fullered, with jeweled hilts. He gave them no more than a cursory glance and studied the rest: a blocky, heavy chopping knife, almost but not quite a cleaver; a plain-looking single-edged blade with an interesting curve to the back and a pattern like water across the metal; some meat cutters the cook would no doubt like, next to a slender blade the like of which he had never seen before. “What is this?” he asked the old man.
“It’s a filleting knife.”
Jazen’s hand hovered over the plain blade. “May I?” he asked.
The old man snorted. “Aye. It’s for sale, if you’ve the coin.”
Jazen picked it up, sighted along the blade, ran a thumbnail along the edge, and put it back. He picked up the chopper, swung it experimentally, looked at the edge and tested it against his arm. “If I had the coin,” he said, “I’d buy this one.”
The old man studied him. “Why?”
“It’s the best one here.”
“You’re mad. Those are real jewels, and that layered blade is worth—”
Jazen shook his head. “I don’t care about jewels. I care about metal. Those blades are warped. And your layered blade—” he pointed inquiringly at the watered-edge knife, and when the old man nodded, continued “—hasn’t been tempered very well. The edge is soft. I don’t know how you got that pattern—I like it—but as a knife, no. This one, it’s heavy, but it’s meant to cut. Branches, bone. You could trim a carcass with this, use it to clean the hide. It’s a good working tool. It’s sharp. It’s not brittle. I like it best.”
The old man laughed. “You’ve worked metal, boy. Who’s your master?”
Jazen swallowed. “I have no—I mean, I am with Firaloy sr’Islit and his goodwife, but they aren’t metalsmiths.”
“Don’t know them.” And, since they weren’t metalsmiths, the old man didn’t care. “But you’ve been to the forge. I can see it in your hands. You have the scars from fire and blade and hammer. Where?”
Jazen swallowed. “I’m not from the city.” If he told this man he was from Smattac, and word ever came about a runaway bondservant, Belzec might be able to claim him back. He wasn’t sure. It would be safer not to say.
Again, the man studied him. “Runaway,” he said at last, as if there was no question about it. “Not from the city, you say.”
Jazen said nothing.
“Any good?”
Jazen lifted his head. He was good, even without the—extra help he sometimes had.
“My name is Gilé,” the old man said. “I sent my last ‘prentice on his journey two months ago. Not looking to bring along another, not at my age. But you sound like a likely lad. Know something about metal. Like to swing a hammer again?”
Jazen lifted the chopper. “Was this your prentice’s work?”
Gilé smiled. “Mine, boy.”
“I’d like to see your forge,” Jazen said.
It was smaller than the forge in Smattac, but there were the bellows, the tongs, the chisels, the heap of charcoal as high as his shoulder against the wall of the little courtyard behind the shop. Underneath the shed-roof, the cubbyholes for tools, for bits and pieces of metal, for wood and leather and all manner of materials for hilts. And the forge: hooded by strong metal curved over the fire pit, smoldering, the smell of fire and hot metal so familiar he could not tell if the pricking in his eyes was from cinders or homesickness. The weight of the iyiza in the pouch at his waist was suddenly very heavy.
“There’s an apron, boy,” Gilé said. “Care to show me what you can do with this?” He tossed a round bar the length of his forearm to him.
Jazen took a long look at the bar, hefted it, and swallowed. Then he flexed his shoulders. “Yes,” he said. “I would like that.”
Gilé didn’t tell him where anything was, but answered readily enough when Jazen asked, diffidently at first and then, when the old man sounded nothing at all like Belzec, with more assurance and finally with an abstracted concentration on what he was doing. As he stoked the forge-fire (please, Gods of my unknown father, no demons now! Not now!), Gilé asked him questions about what he was doing, what he planned to do. How hot did he want the metal to get? How could he tell? As Jazen tried the swing of several hammers before selecting one, why that one and not another? As the bar heated and Jazen turned it in the flames, pausing only to pump the bellows, what did he think the bar was good for? As he set the red-hot metal on the anvil (thank you—perhaps the demons couldn’t find him in this huge city?) and got into the rhythm of his swing, what would he quench it in, and why? All manner of questions about methods of firing, and materials he had used, what he had made and by what techniques. At last, the third time the now-flattened bar was returned to the fire to re-heat, Jazen was able to spare enough of his attention to realize the man was probing him, seeing how much he knew, where the holes were in his ability and education. There was no accusation or condescension in the questioning. It was simply a matter of measurement. He also never asked what, exactly, Jazen was making. He was letting the younger man show him.
But it was the third time that disaster struck, as he was beginning to truly relax. The afternoon was wearing on, and Jazen was beginning to think he should ask if he could come back the next day. Gilé had stepped away to check the shop doors and get some more water for the two of them to drink. Sweat was pouring off Jazen’s back and gathering in his eyebrows, itching at the nape of his neck where he had tied back his hair. The metal was beginning to redden again—
And there were demons dancing along the blade, celebrating the sparks that flew.
They were tiny things, a dozen of them at least, at first barely distinguishable from the sparks themselves, then the height of his thumbnail, but even so he could see the features on their faces, hear their laughter in the roar of the forge. As they twisted and turned and raised flickering arms, the metal beneath them turned redder, brighter, and Jazen cursed helplessly, pulling the metal out and slamming it onto the anvil, raising the hammer high to try to beat each one of them to death somehow. Instead of cooling in the open air, the bar stayed red-hot under their tiny, naked feet, and Jazen looked around frantically for the quench tub, desperate to try to drown them even at the cost of ruining all his work.
To see Gilé standing behind him, a skin of water in his hands, and an expression of utter delight on his face instead of the horror he should have felt.
“Oh!” Gilé said, just audible over all the noise. “The fire people! They come for you, too!”
It was late that night before the forgemaster and his new apprentice—he insisted on calling Jazen that, despite his half-hearted protests—stopped talking. By then they had eaten, and Gilé would not let Jazen try to find his way back to the Street of Scribes in the dark. He made a cot on the floor of the shop for him before stumping his way back into the two rooms overhead where he lived.
Jazen stared up at the ceiling, listening to the footsteps overhead, the creak of the boards. This was nothing like his little room in the house of Vettazen and Firaloy—it was cramped and really nothing more than a pair of blankets for him to lie between.
On the other hand, it was so much better than the dirt floor behind the forge in Smattac where he had slept for as long as he could remember.
Gilé had seen the demons—the “fire people,” he called them—and had not reacted in horror or rage, had not called for Jazen’s immediate death. He had agreed, chortling, that perhaps not mentioning them to anyone else would be a good thing. Even sophisticated Mirlacca would not accept little dancers of fire making their cutlery and door locks. But Gilé had not only seen them before, he had used them. They were a part of everything he made, although his previous apprentice had never once evoked them and Gilé had made quite sure the boy had never seen them in his own forging.
Did this mean he could desert the people who had taken him in, helped him escape his bond, given him a place among them, welcomed him? Could he walk away, take up the apron and hammer and learn—and he had so much to learn!—from Gilé instead?
And if Immatus refused to present the Charter to the Emperor, would it even matter?
He owed Vettazen and Firaloy so much, for not turning him away, for welcoming him, for not condemning him when they saw the demons in his fires. He wasn’t sure what his role in their plans could be. Here, at least, he knew exactly what was expected of him, he knew what he could learn, and the old man wanted to teach him. And he, too, had seen the demons, and accepted them, welcomed them even.
It was a long time before Jazen got to sleep.
Over the next few days Jazen went back and forth between the metalworkers’ quarter and the Street of Scribes. At night he puzzled over the spell Adri had given him, painfully sounding out the words, trying to identify the listed herbs. During the day he worked with Gilé, trying new techniques to forge metals he had never tried before, seeking to control the fire people so they wouldn’t make the metal so hot it became brittle, learning what materials made the best hilts and how to fix them firmly to the tang.
Gilé was careful never to let anyone else enter the forge while they worked. It would not do, he said, to let others see the fire people. His own old master had been burned at the stake for letting his own wife see him talk to the fire people.
At the house on the Street of Scribes, the household met for the early meal, but no one was in the mood to talk much. Meleas stayed mostly in the stables. Adri seemed busy running errands. And the masters spoke mostly to each other and to friends they brought in. Jazen found he missed the comfortable exchange of small talk, even the reading lessons, but he was focused now on Gilé, and working metal, and more and more on the iyiza weighing down his belt pouch.
It was after Gilé showed him how to achieve the watered pattern in the steel by folding metal over and over on itself in layers that he realized what the bundle of metal was supposed to be for. He had made a half-dozen knives, sturdy working blades that had passed Gilé’s critical eye, before he finally dared to bring out the iyiza and put it on the work table.
Gilé’s brows raised. “Ah,” he said, fanning out the metal strips with his fingers. “And this is yours? Do you know what this is, youngster?”
Jazen thought of the lifetime he had spent being beaten and cursed, working for no pay and bad food. He had learned more from Gilé in less than a month than he had in all his years with Belzec. “It’s mine,” he said defiantly. “I earned it.”
His teacher gave him a long look. “Very well, then,” he said at last. “What you have here is very high-quality metal, mostly high-carbon iron, but some other things as well that alloy well—if you can forge it properly. These bundles come from the north, mostly, and it’s rare to find them bundled and ready for work like this. The superstitious say they’re cursed, that things you make from iyiza are never what you intended. They’re either very, very good, or they turn on you. Are you sure? Are you ready?”
“I think I am,” Jazen said. “Do you?”
Gilé laughed. “Let us see what you can make with hammer and flame, youngster. Tomorrow, you can begin.”
That night, Jazen reviewed the spell Adri had given him, assembled packets of the herbs the other apprentice had listed, sounded his way through the short verses over and over again until he knew them by heart. He wasn’t sure why he was doing it; he was making a knife, after all, not casting a spell. But he recalled the look in Adri’s eyes, and thought, I am an apprentice here too. I may as well. What harm can it do?
The next day, at Gilé’s forge, he sprinkled the herbs in between the strips of metal, feeling a little silly as he did so. The next step was to weld them together. He bound them back together with wire and checked the color of the fire before using the tongs to place the bundle in the forge. Gilé watched approvingly, nodded, and then left him alone to take care of the shop. This was Jazen’s work, and his alone.
Plus, he thought, a little magic. Maybe.
He pumped the bellows and set the bound iyiza into the flames. He thought he could almost see the shredded herbs catch fire, leap up and smolder into the block of metal as it heated, as he worked the bellows and turned it over, as it began to slowly turn red and begin to glow. And then the fire people, the demons, came.
They were bare sparks at first, along the edges where he could still see the different kinds of metal in distinct layers. They grew as the metal glowed brighter, and then they began to dive through the metal as if they were playing in water, and they twisted around and looked at him, laughing joyously as he sweated.
He pulled the glowing block out of the forge, set it on the anvil, and reached for his hammer.
You who come from fire and seed
Make this now to what I need
The hammer fell. The fire people laughed. He swung it harder, even blows, stretching the block into a longer strip, no more a stack of metal layers but one piece. As it began to cool, he hung the strip over the side of the anvil and began to fold it back upon itself until he could no longer feel it give to the hammer, and then he put the reformed block back into the flame and watched the fire people come again.
And again.
And again.
He lost count of the number of times he folded the iyiza, never letting it cool back to blackness, never letting the fire people die away.
This the tool that I do make
For all I need for my own sake
For a sorcerer, he thought, Adri made a poor poet.
And then, finally, it was the right length, the right thickness, and the demons were almost the size of his own hand, diving through coals and metal alike and reaching out to Jazen as he hammered, looking him in the eyes, and he felt a connection to the flames as he never had before, never at Belzec’s forge, never, as if with each blow of the hammer he pounded a piece of his own soul into the metal fabric shaping itself at his hands.
You who come from fire and seed
Be this now as I shall need
You who come from seed and fire
Shape yourself to my desire
That this shall be my own blade
That fire and seed and magic made
It was almost enough. His hands were blistered and bleeding from holding the hammer, switching hands at every seventh blow. He lifted the shape with the tongs to plunge it into the quench and then remembered the last instruction.
He would not bleed on the red-hot blade and invite cracking. But he could wash the blood and sweat from his hands in the quench.
And as the knife went in, the fire people screamed and dived into the metal itself to hide from the cooling liquid. But there were no clicks and cracks in the metal, and as he drew it out it blossomed one last time in sparks and flame.
Gilé found him, then, slumped beside the anvil, staring at the metal lying there. Jazen felt he could not have lifted his arms for one more blow to save his life. What had been a pile of metal strips was now a recognizable knife blade with a sturdy tang, a shape with one long edge and a solid, curved spine.
“It needs honing,” Gilé said. “Polishing. And a good hilt.” He picked it up, inspecting the length of metal for warping, for cracks, and found none. He swung it experimentally. “This is good work, boy. Very good work.”
Jazen nodded, rolled his shoulders, and winced. Gilé laughed. “Better than even you know, boy.”
* * *
Immatus looked smug as he cut the flesh from his bird. “I understand what a disappointment this is for you, Ser sr’Islit, but the facts are the facts. There is no magic since the Yaan Maat was defeated.”
“So the fountains do not stink of blood at noon?” Vettazen asked quietly.
Immatus took a deep drink of his ale. “There are some residual effects, of course, and that is the most notable. They were great and terrible sorcerers. But it does not last long, no one is harmed. We simply have no need for a Guild to study a magic which is fading away to nothingness. You are asking for privileges you cannot possibly earn.”
At the other end of the table, Jazen spread butter across a roll.
“Ser Immatus, you are very certain of this.” Firaloy sounded very sad.
“Of course I am. It is simple truth. If you really were able to produce magic, then of course it would be a different tale, but you cannot. No one can.”
“Hedge witches …” Vettazen began.
“Ser, do not insult me. Do you suggest a Guild for the makers of herbal potions?”
Jazen was beginning to be very tired of the constant kicking his ankle was getting from Adri, beside him.
“I suggest there is more to all of this than you know.”
Immatus snorted. “If you would give me some more of that excellent bread, Goodwife. Now that bread is something I might consider magical!” He roared with laughter.
Jazen got up and picked the basket of bread out of the air as it was being passed from Meleas to Firaloy, walked around Vettazen, and put it down in front of the Palace functionary. “May I offer you my spreading-knife?” he asked, offering it hilt-first, as was proper. The smear of butter on the wide, dull blade gleamed in the light from the torches. “Do be careful, Ser. It’s sharper than it looks.”
Immatus reached for another roll, good brown bread thick with seeds, then took up the offered implement. He sank the edge of the spreader into the roll, pushing it hard against the crust. The dull, rounded edge barely dented it. Immatus shoved it back impatiently to Jazen, who took it and pushed lightly against the bread in the man’s hand.
Better than you know.
And Immatus yelped, as the knife transformed from a dull butter-spreader into a single-edged blade of water-patterned metal three times the size that went through the soft bread and into the meat of his palm. The roll was turning a mushy red as blood poured over the table. Immatus dropped it and stared at the sharp blade stuck in his hand and screamed.
Jazen reached over him and pried the knife out, panicking. He wasn’t supposed to cut the man, just show him how the knife changed. He had no idea why it had turned lethal; he had barely used any pressure at all. He cast a terrified glance at the masters, hoping they understood the mistake. Meanwhile, Immatus’s gaze followed the blade and watched it transform back into a small, meek, innocuous, and very dull butter-spreader.
“You cut me,” he gasped. “You cut me!”
“Impossible,” Vettazen said quietly. “There is no edge to that blade. No point. You said so yourself, Ser: There is no human magic. So how could a mere spreader cut you?”
“It was—” Immatus tried to clench his bleeding hand and cried out again as his hand refused to obey. “My hand!”
“I did mention, Ser—” But Vettazen caught Jazen’s eye and shook her head sharply. She was watching Immatus and didn’t seem angry at him at all. Jazen nodded with cautious relief, picked up another piece of bread and wiped the butter and blood away, then thrust the spreader—now a knife again—into the sheath at his side. Immatus’s eyes grew wide, rolled back, and he slumped off the chair.
“Oh, dear,” Firaloy muttered. “And us without a healing spell. Adri, I don’t suppose—”
Adri shook his head, helplessly, just as Immatus’s eyes opened again.
And opened wider.
And glowed.
He shook his head and snarled something in a language none of them had heard before, and licked at his hand. “Not enough,” he said, and before their startled eyes the deep wound stopped bleeding and Immatus got to his feet. “Give me that knife, boy.”
Jazen swallowed and stepped back, his hand on the hilt. “No, sir.”
“Give me the knife, boy.” Immatus swung his once-injured hand in Jazen’s direction and all the dishes and remains of the carefully prepared dinner went flying. Jazen,Vettazen, Meleas, and Adri staggered from a blow that never touched them. “Give it to me now and I might let you live!”
“Yaan Maat are notorious liars,” Firaloy gasped, and from the floor threw one of their good goblets at Immatus’s head.
Yaan Maat? Jazen thought, even as he leaped away. They had only thought to show Immatus he was wrong, show him the fruit of Adri’s spell and Jazen’s work. No one had said anything about Yaan Maat!
The demon snarled again and picked up the oak refectory table, swinging it up over his head. Jazen dodged, shoving Vettazen out of the way. Meleas ducked back. Firaloy, on the floor, was caught directly in the table’s path and collapsed without a cry.
Without knowing exactly what he was doing, Jazen yanked the knife free from his belt.
You who come from fire and seed
Be this now as I shall need
He had no idea what he needed. He was no trained fighter, certainly not with the sword he found in his hand. He cast a despairing glance to Adri, who shook his head—Adri, who could use a sword, but if he took this one up, it wouldn’t be a sword any more. The magic of the fire people had shaped it only to his hand.
So he slashed, and as the blade came down it changed again, from long narrow light blade to something else, wider at the point, chopping at the demon. Immatus glared and stepped back.
“The mataal, Jazen! Break the mataal!”
But the little velvet bag with the pieces of mataal, the inscribed ivory in which Yaan Maat lived when they weren’t possessing humans, was safely tucked under Immatus’s tunic. The demon laughed and raised his hands again. Smoke began to pour from them.
More than anything, he wanted to run away, but Jazen’s knife—or sword—or whatever it was—appeared to have other ideas. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Adri and Vettazen scrambling through the debris for something, anything, to throw at Immatus. Meleas was muttering to Firaloy, who was on the floor, under the oak table.
Jazen lunged, since the knife seemed to think that was a good idea, and Immatus whipped his smoking hands out of the way. The smoke eddied over the prostrate Firaloy, who gagged and coughed, desperately waving it away. Vettazen threw a soup bowl, which smacked against Immatus’s head and distracted him long enough to let Jazen get a stride closer. Obligingly, the knife lengthened and sliced.
But there were limits, it seemed. There had only been so much metal in the iyiza, and as sharp as his weapon was, at that length it had no heft and was impossible to control. The tip ripped at the demon’s sleeve and drew blood, but it was only a scratch. Immatus cursed and reached for his own eating knife and threw it at Jazen. It buried itself in his upper arm and he almost dropped his weapon.
But he had hammered the iyiza knife with both hands, and he took it from the suddenly nerveless fingers of his right into his left and swung it again. Immatus swung his hands and a wind came up, creating a whirlwind of rushes and debris and broken crockery. Meleas shouted. Immatus laughed.
And then his laughter changed, suddenly, as a brown shadow appeared from the debris on the floor and launched itself at him. The demon screamed and beat at himself, but the rat ran up Immatus’s leg and around his back. Jazen lunged from the floor and his knife, now back into its home shape, sank deep into Immatus’s leg.
The demon screamed and Jazen felt a crushing blow out of nowhere, pinning him to the floor. Immatus had fallen, too, on his back, trying to crush the rat. Somehow Jazen found the strength to strike at the demon’s chest, but it had no power behind it and the blade merely sliced through the Court finery, exposing a pudgy hairless chest—and a red velvet bag. Immatus staggered up, the wound in his leg healing itself as Jazen watched, but the rat—Meleas’s rat—squealed and snapped, as Adri used Immatus’s own eating knife and his own to deliver a double blow to the demon’s back. The cord around the demon’s neck parted. The bag fell to the floor. Before Immatus could raise his lethal hands, the iyiza blade transformed into a hammer and smashed into it.
With a shriek, Immatus swung his hands and more smoke poured out. But this time his wounds did not heal. The hammer in Jazen’s hand descended again and again, in the rhythm he knew better than his own pulse, smashing the mataals, as Adri, Meleas, and Vettazen struck once more.
This time, the demon did not rise.
* * *
“Well,” Lord Lasvennat said, surveying the hall. They had done the best they could to clean it up, but it would take days, and none of them were untouched. Firaloy had a broken leg and a concussion. Jazen’s arm was bandaged. Meleas, Adri, and Vettazen all still had trouble breathing from the demon’s smoke, and Meleas’s eyes were red and swollen—although Jazen thought that might be because of the rat, which had also died.
“Well,” the lord said again. He shook his head. “I didn’t actually think there were any more Yaan Maat among us. It seems I was wrong.” The red bag swung from its cord. He had taken possession of it, but was obviously not eager to touch it. In fact, he seemed relieved to hold it out to Vettazen. “I think this would be better in the hands of someone who studies such things professionally, Guildlady.” He looked around. “And where is this famous knife of which I have heard so much?”
“It’s Jazen’s, my lord,” Vettazen said.
“Ah, yes. The knifemaker. So, young man.” Lasvennat raised an eyebrow. “Apprenticed in two Guilds? Unheard of.”
Jazen swallowed, aware that all eyes were on him—this lord from the Emperor’s own Court, Vettazen and Firaloy, who had brought him away from bondage, even Meleas and Adri-nes, who had befriended him. Fought with him. Lasvennat—summoned from the Court when someone, somehow, had to explain the death of Immatus—hefted the “famous knife” in his hand. It remained itself, one-edged, slightly curved. Nothing unusual about it at all.
It felt wrong, seeing someone else hold that knife. It called to him, as if it needed him. As if the fire people deep in the blade needed him.
“I … I have much to learn,” he mumbled at last.
Lasvennat smiled and held the knife out to him, hilt first. “It is a terrible thing to kill a man,” he said quietly. “But it is an honorable thing to protect your own. These folk, I think, claim you for their own.”
Nodding, Jazen took the knife, stuffing it into his belt, and faded back into the little crowd and then out the door and away from all the stares. He could still hear them talking.
“I think he’ll be coming back to us,” Firaloy said, complacent.
Lasvennat smiled. “I’m certain the Exorcists and the Ironworkers can come to some accommodation.”
“I hope so,” Vettazen said. “We need his magic. As we need all the magic in this room.”
“In this city,” Lasvennat corrected. “Indeed, in the Empire. We had magic before the demons came. We never lost it. We need to bring it back. Smashing a mataal is not all it takes to kill a demon. It takes magic, too—human magic.
“Build us a Guild, Sers. Recall our magic. And—” he looked past them, out the door where Jazen had disappeared “—make sure that young man is one of you. I want one of those knives.”
Vettazen laughed. “So do we, my lord. All of us.”