Glasswrights' Test (5 page)

“Welcome, in the name of Jair,” Parion said automatically. Which one of the Fellowship was this? Would Parion recognize the face inside the hood? His heart beat faster as the visitor closed the door.

It had taken Parion years to build tenuous ties with the Fellowship. Only in the past six months had he determined a reliable system for sending messages, for requesting a visit from the shadowy faction. In Brianta, even more than in Morenia, the Fellowship of Jair held power. The organization had its roots here in the Pilgrim's homeland; it sent out its tendrils of power to the rest of the world.

Priests made offerings to the Fellowship, saluting the clandestine organization through scarce-veiled sermons. The Briantan king was rumored to pay tribute on a monthly basis, offering up gold and jewels for the right to keep his throne. The Fellowship determined the raising of masters in at least three guilds, and the captain of the City Guard was widely rumored to be a member.

Parion swallowed audibly, his throat suddenly dry. “Would you share a glass of wine with a humble glasswright master?”

“Nay,” the visitor replied, carefully pitching the single word to a tone that defied Parion's perception of gender. Male or female, this secret Fellow was determined to remain anonymous. “I haven't much time.”

“You've brought the Hand, though?” Parion could not keep the eagerness from his voice. He had worked his first business transaction with the Fellowship almost six months before, and he had spent nearly all of his limited patience waiting for fruition.

“Aye.”

When the figure did not move forward promptly enough, Parion fought the urge to rush across the floor. Instead, he said hoarsely, “Let me see it, then!”

“All in good time. All in good time, Glasswright.”

Parion's curiosity gnawed at him like acid. He had promised much to the Fellowship for this new device. A message had been slipped beneath his door the day before, an unsigned slip of parchment that stated only, “Liantine riches have arrived.”

Who
did
the Fellowship deal with in that distant land? The Liantines could have no use for the First Pilgrim, not with their worship of the ancient goddess, the Horned Hind. The Fellowship of Jair would have no easy time snaring power from the house of Thunderspear. Someone, though, had joined them. Someone had come to recognize their power.

And that someone had sent the precious goods that Parion needed, that the glasswrights craved. Trying to mask his eagerness, he crossed to the window, but he could not keep from making the Briantan sign of gratitude. The ritual gesture recognized the power of Jair's favor upon his people. “Let me see the Hand.”

The Fellow took a moment, raising gloved fingers to adjust the deep hood. Parion wanted to bellow, “I won't look at your cursed face! Just show me the goods!” but he managed to restrain himself. Instead, he muttered a prayer for patience. May Plad keep him on his true course and guide him in the ways of waiting.

The visitor stepped up to the window and produced a silk-swathed bundle from beneath the disguising black robe. Plad be damned—Parion snatched the roll of cloth. As he unwound the soft, undyed fabric, his breath came fast. Twice, his agile fingers nearly let the precious thing slip to the floor.

Careful! he tried to warn himself. You've waited for six months. Surely you can wait a few more heartbeats.

Turn the cloth. Shift the burden. Position his fingers beneath the Hand, cradle it. One last twist of fabric. One last turn.

And there it was.

An iron bracelet, wrapped in softest spidersilk. Silk bands looped over the iron, hinting at the shape of a palm, of vital, bending fingers. Long, shimmering thread—no, not thread—ribbon, fashioned from the same precious silk, weaving from finger to finger, looping across the shimmering sunlight. Carefully oiled metal levers, weighted with a jeweler's precision.

Parion glanced at his visitor, annoyed that he must share this treasure with anyone, even with a silent guest, even with the person who it. Turning his back on the black-robed figure, Parion faced the window. He clenched his own fist—his four functional fingers, his thumb—and then he slipped the leather cuff over his hand.

It was light. Flexible. He guided his fingers into the loops of spidersilk, adjusted the ribbons. Folding his working thumb against his palm, he lined up the metal jaws with the edge of his hand, pretending as best he could that he had no digit, that he was as maimed as his poor guildsmen.

He wiggled his fingers, manipulating the metal jaws with the silken ribbons. The motion was smooth, but his hand rebelled against the strange balance. He felt the tremor of a cramp skirt across his palm. Squinting in concentration, he reached toward the large earthenware pot on the edge of the table, closest to the window. Baubles of glass filled the container—one thousand plus one, for each of the Gods and First Pilgrim Jair. It had taken Parion a year to assemble his offering in a manner acceptable to the Briantan priests.

He reached toward the pot, catching his lower lip between his teeth in concentration. If he could just manipulate the ribbons. … If he could pull the jaws open. … There. …

There. …

He brought the metal teeth closer to a glass bauble, to a glinting bit of crimson on the top of the pile. Despite his intense concentration, he was distracted by a flash of light on the pebble, the smallest reflection of sunlight from the metal jaws. Which god had he saluted when he presented that trinket to the offering pot? Which of the Thousand had he recognized as he added the glass to his stash?

Concentrate. Focus. Move the fingers. Right—no, left! Easy. Easy. Close the jaws by edging his fingers closer to his palm, by folding them over his own thumb, his real thumb. Slowly. … Slowly. …

He caught his breath as he lifted the crimson glass. Using the Hand, he brought the treasure up to his face, looked through it at the morning sunshine. The Briantan street outside his window turned to crimson, washed in blood red as if a sudden sunset had descended upon the city. Parion turned to his visitor and barely caught a laugh against the back of his throat. “It works!”

“Of course it works,” the hooded figure whispered. “You asked the Fellowship, and we delivered. It could do nothing less than work.”

“There are more? I asked for two score, left and right.”

“There will be more. The others will be delivered in a fortnight.”

“We cannot wait!” Not now. Not when Parion had seen how well the Hand could be manipulated.

“You must.” The visitor stepped back from the window, retreating into the room's deep shadows. “The Fellowship demands it.”

“I have a guild to manage!”

“Your guild has waited eight years. It can wait another fortnight.”

Parion wanted to howl against the injustice. Didn't the Fellowship
know
? Didn't they
understand
? The glasswrights needed these Hands, they
deserved
them. Nevertheless, there was nothing he could say. Nothing he could do. The Fellowship held all the cards. He took a deep breath and forced himself to say, “A fortnight, then.”

“We will expect full payment, before we deliver the goods.”

“Of course.”

“Full payment, in gold. And in service.”

A shiver ran down Parion's spine, as if the Hand's iron jaws had stroked his jugular. “What service can you need of me?”

“Nothing you will mind giving.” The hooded figure took a single step forward. “Only that you summon one here, to Brianta.”

“Summon one? Who?”

“The one you call the Traitor.”

Parion's reaction was automatic; his unbound hand moved in the ritual gesture of cleansing. “You cannot ask that of me.”

“The Fellowship does not ask. It demands.”

“I will not communicate with her. You demand too much.”

“We offer much. Forty Hands, Glasswright.”

“She is the very reason that we need the Hands! She is the one who destroyed us.”

“All the more reason for you to send for her, then. Get her to Brianta. Her fate awaits her here. Get the Traitor to our land, and the Hands will be yours.”

Parion opened his mouth to protest. Anything but that. Anything but reaching out to that one, welcoming her in, bringing her back to the good glasswrights that she had betrayed. Before he could speak, though, the hooded figure turned and crossed to the door.

From the threshold, a heavy whisper carried across the room: “Send the message today, Glasswright. In a fortnight, spidersilk can burn. Iron can be reforged.”

The Fellow glided out the door, even as Parion started to protest. The master glasswright stretched his right hand toward the door, toward escape, toward a fleeing dream. The monstrous metal jaws gaped as Parion drew back, as he lowered the device to his side.

He sighed. Contact the Traitor. Invite her to Brianta. Could he force himself to write the letter?

Parion turned back to his window. Reaching across his body with his left hand, he unfastened the spidersilk ribbons that nestled the Hand against his flesh. When the contraption lay on the table, the metal jaws pointed up, accusing him with their smooth surfaces. How could he let his pride interfere? How could he imagine
not
inviting the Traitor to Brianta, if that was the payment the Fellowship demanded? He owed all of his glasswrights, all of the children who had grown into competent journeymen, actual masters, despite their injuries in service to the guild. He must swallow his pride, his wrath. He must send the letter.

Parion reached into his offering basket and palmed a bauble of glass, cool blue this time. He rolled it across his flesh and felt the trinket absorb the heat from his skin. Over his fingers, under his fingers, across the white-gleaming cicatrices of his craft. This, too, was a meditation on Jair. This, too, was worship of the Thousand Gods. Without consciously planning, he muttered a prayer to the pilgrim, words that passed his lips a hundred times a day. “May First Pilgrim Jair intercede for all my prayers in the true course of time.”

Somehow, Brianta had converted him into a religious man. At first, he had adopted the Briantans' complicated prayers because he wanted to prove his fitness for their society. He wanted to illustrate that he was safe, that they could trust him. He needed the security of a land where the king held little power, where the glasswrights could lick their wounds and recover. Over time, however, Parion had grown to find comfort in the prayerful words, refuge in the familiarity. His mind glided over the religious salutations like a blind man striding along a familiar path. Briantan worship had become a salve. A support. A guide.

Parion's reflections were interrupted as the door to his study opened yet again. No knock this time; no request for admission. One of the glasswrights, then. One who expected to be welcome in this chamber.

He glanced up in time to see Larinda Glasswright slip into the room. She reached out automatically for the prayer bell, passed her palm across the surface with a smooth touch that set the chimes to jangling. The action was reflexive for the girl. After all, she had spent nearly one third of her life in Brianta, eight years surrounded by the paraphernalia of First Pilgrim Jair.

Parion forced a patient smile onto his lips. “Blessings of the Pilgrim, Journeyman.”

“Blessings of the Pilgrim, Master,” she responded immediately.

“How fares the guild this morning, Larinda?”

“Well, Master.” She ducked her head in the traditional salute. “The apprentices are counting out the new shipment of Zarithian glass. Our silver stain arrived this morning as well; it is already placed in the treasury.”

“And Instructor Tanilo?”

“He remains in the infirmary. He has not awoken yet. Sister Domira fears for him. She says that the Instructor's fits had been growing worse before he was found in the garden yesterday. It is not good that he has not regained consciousness.”

“May Yor bring strength to the man.”

“May Yor bring strength,” Larinda repeated, making a gesture to summon the protective attention of the god of healing.

Ironically, the motion was nearly impossible for the girl to complete. Her own hands had been maimed in Morenia, destroyed by the King's Men when the Traitor worked her evil upon the guild. Larinda wore a crude Hand, one of the first that Parion had ever commissioned for his charges, but the tool was heavy and lacked both grace and ease of use. In fact, she winced as she twisted her wrist in the complicated salute to Yor.

“Does your hand pain you, Larinda?”

“No, Master,” she responded immediately, but he saw the way she cradled her right wrist with her left.

He made a decision. Stepping over to his work table, he waved the journeyman to his side and lifted the spidersilk shroud that covered the new device. “You should see this, Larinda Glasswright. You should know that we will soon have new Hands for you and all the wounded guildsmen.”

For just an instant, suspicion clouded the girl's face. She glanced at the table, as if she were afraid of trickery, as if she feared that her hopes would be destroyed in a flicker of cruel fire. She could not keep from gazing on the Hand, though. She darted a look at Parion, silently asking for permission. He nodded, and she lifted the new Hand in her heavy, awkward grip.

She ran her fingertips over the silk covering, and a look of awe spread across her face. She straightened the ribbons, twisting them so that they fell in their proper configuration. With two fingers, she manipulated the metal jaws, catching a gasp against the back of her throat as she discovered the smooth motion, as she measured the increased gripping strength.

“Master, it's amazing!”

“We'll have forty of them within a fortnight. Left and right—they're on their way to Brianta now.”

“All thanks go to the Pilgrim,” Larinda said. Parion swallowed a grimace. All thanks did
not
go to the Pilgrim. In fact, some thanks should go toward him, toward Parion.