Storm Season- - Thieves World 04 (17 page)

"Is it worth it, commander?" Thrusher asked as he kneaded a soothing balm into Walegrin's burnt shoulder. "We're here three weeks and all we have to show for ourselves is fresh scars."

"What about full bellies and no problems from Kittycat? Yes, it's worth it. We should know how steel is made; I had always thought the smiths just took the ore and made it into swords. I had no idea there were so many steps in between."

"Aye, so many steps. We've gone through two sacks already and what have we got?

Three half-decent knives, a mountain of bad steel and a demon grinding away in the shed there. Maybe we would be better running. Sometimes I don't think we'll ever leave Sanctuary again."

"He's mad, but no demon. And I think he's getting close to the steel we need. He's as eager to have the steel as we are-it's his life." The little man shook his head and eased Walegrin's tunic over the sore. "I don't like magic," he complained.

"He only added a little bit of Ilsig silver-hardly enough to make a difference. We've got to expect a little magic. We found the mine with magic, didn't we?

Balustrus isn't a magician. He said he couldn't put a spell on the metal like the Wrigglies put on steel, so he thought he'd try to add something to the steel that already had a spell on it."

"Yeah-the Necklace of Harmony!"

"You went to the temple and looked at the statue of Ils. You yourself said there was a silver necklace on the statue. You yourself said there wasn't a rumor in town to the effect that the necklace had been touched, much less stolen. It's not the Necklace of Harmony."

Thrusher bit his lip and looked away in thought. It was just as well that he didn't look at his commander's face. Walegrin had been present at the moment the smith added the bits of silver to the molten metal. He could truthfully say he didn't believe the metal was the Necklace of Harmony, but after seeing the burst of white-hot flame he knew it was no ordinary piece of jewelry. The whine of Balustrus' grinding wheel dominated the courtyard. The furnaces had been sealed; the piles of crushed ore glittered in the sunlight. Everyone awaited the results of the latest grinding. It seemed to Walegrin, as he turned away from the sound, that it was different this time. The metal shrieked like an agonized, living thing.

Thrusher gave him a sharp nudge. The courtyard had become silent and an apprentice was running toward them. It was time, the youth shouted, for Walegrin to witness the tempering of the blade.

"Luck," Thrusher added as Walegrin rose.

"Aye, luck. If it's good we can start thinking of leaving." Balustrus was polishing the freshly ground blade when Walegrin entered the hot, dusty shed. The bronze man's tunic was filthy with sweat and dust from the grinding wheel. His mottled skin glistened more brightly than the metal.

"She's a beauty, isn't she?" he said, giving the blade to Walegrin while he sought his crutches.

Fine, wavy lines of black alternated with thicker bands of a more silvery metal. The old Enlibrite sword he kept rolled in his mattress had no such striations but Balustrus said an iron core would ultimately yield a better steel; so much could be learned from the Rankan armorers. Walegrin thumped the flat of the new blade against his palm, wishing he knew if the metal-master were correct.

"We've done it, son!" Balustrus exaulted, grabbing the blade back. "I knew the secret would be in that silver."

Walegrin followed him out of the shed to one of the smaller furnaces which the apprentices had already fired. The youths ran when the men approached.

"But there was no silver mentioned on the pottery fragment; and there's no silver in ordinary steel, is there?"

The metal-master spat on a weed. "Wrigglies never did anything without a spell, lad. Spells for cooking food, spells for bedding a whore. Big spells, little spells and special spells for steel. And this time we've got the steel spell."

"With respect-you said that last time and it shattered in the brine." Balustrus scratched his rutted chin. "I did, didn't I? But this .feels right, boy. There's no other way to explain it. It feels different and it feels right. And it has to be the silver-that's the only different thing this time."

"Did the silver have a 'steel' spell on it?" Walegrin asked. The metal-master thrust the blade into the glowing coals. "You're smart, Walegrin. Too bad it's too late; you could have learned-you could make your own steel." He spat again and the weed fell over. "No, it wasn't a steel spell nothing like that. I don't know what the Wrigglies put on that silver. The Torch brought the necklace here right after the Prince announced the bell. I could see it was old, but it was plain silver and not valuable. I thought he'd want it for the inscription; silver pressed on bronze is quite elegant. But no-the Hierarch gives out that this is the Necklace of Harmony warm off Ils-no saying how he comes to have it. He wants me to melt the silver into the bell: 'Let Ils tremble when Vashanka's name is called!' he says in that priest's voice of his-"

"But you didn't," Walegrin interrupted.

"Not sayin' I didn't try, boy. Put it in with the copper; put it in with the tin-the damn thing floated to the top everytime. I had a choice: I could cast the bell with the silver buried in the metal and know that the bell would crack as soon as the Torch struck it. You can imagine the omens that would bring-and what it'd bring to me as well. Or, I could set the silver aside and tell the Torch that everything was exactly according to his instructions."

"And you set the silver aside?" Walegrin covered his face with his hand and turned away from the both the metal-master and the furnace.

"Of course, lad. Do you think the heavens're going to open up and Vashanka stick his head out to tell Molin Torchholder that Ils' silver isn't in the bell?"

"Stranger things have happened of late." Walegrin faced the metal-master's silence. "The silver should have melted in the bronze, shouldn't it?" he asked softly.

"Aye-and I set it aside very carefully when it didn't. I'll be glad to see the last of it. I don't know what it is that the Torch gave me-and I'll wager he doesn't either. But it is Wrigglie-work and it'd have to be spelled or it would have melted-see? So you come asking for Enlibrite steel. You've got the ore and, all things being equal, steel is steel. But it isn't, so I know we need a spell, a spell for hardness and temper. No-one alive would know that spell, but here I've got silver that doesn't melt with a mighty spell on it"And, oh, it feels right, Walegrin, it feels right. She'll take an edge like you've never seen."

Walegrin shrugged and looked at the metal-master again. "If you're right, how many swords can you make?"

"With what's left of your ore and my necklace: about fifty. And as it's my silver, lad, I'll be taking more for myself. There'll be about twenty-five for you and the same for me."

The blond officer shrugged again. It was no worse than he had expected. He watched as Balustrus wrestled the dull, red metal from the fire. There were conflicting theories on the tempering of fighting steel. Some said a snowdrift was best for cooling the metal, others said plain water would suffice. Most agreed the ideal was the living body of a man, though in practice only Imperial swords were made that way. Balustrus believed in water straight from the harbor, left in the sun until it had evaporated by half. He plunged the blade into a barrel of such brine and disappeared in the acrid steam. The blade survived.

"Get the old sword," Balustrus urged and with a nod Walegrin sent Thrusher after it.

They compared the blades for weight and balance, then, slowly, they tested them against each other. Walegrin held the old sword and Balustrus swung the new. The first strokes were tentative; Walegrin scarcely felt them as he parried them. Then the metal-master grew confident; he swung the new metal with increasing force and uncanny accuracy. Deep green sparks fell in the late afternoon light, but Walegrin found himself more concerned with the old man who suddenly no longer seemed to need crutches. After a few frantic moments Walegrin backed out of range. Balustrus stopped, sighed and let the blade drag in the dust.

"We found it, lad," he whispered.

He sent the apprentices into Sanctuary for a keg of ale. The soldiers and the apprentices partook lavishly of it, but Balustrus did not. He continued to sit in the courtyard with the fresh-ground blade across his hidden, crippled legs. It was dark when Walegrin came out to join him.

"You are truly a master of metal," the younger man said with a smile, setting an extra mug of ale beside Balustrus.

The metal-master shook his head, declining both the ale and the compliment. "I'm a shadow of what I was," he said to himself. "So, now you have your Enlibrite swords, son. And what will you do with them?"

Walegrin squatted in the moonlight. The ale had warmed him against the night breezes and made him both more expansive and optimistic than usual. "With the promise of swords I can recruit men-only a few at first. But we'll travel north, taking commissions-taking what's necessary. I'll hire more as I go. We'll arrive at the Wizardwall fully mounted and armored. We'll prove ourselves with honor and glory against the Nisibisi, then become the vanguard of a legion." Chuckling loudly, the metal-master finally took a sip of ale. "Glory and honor, Walegrin, lad-what will you do with glory? What do you gain with honor? What becomes of your men when Wizardwall and the Nisibisi are forgotten?" Honor and glory were their own rewards for a Rankan soldier and as for war-a soldier could always find a conflict or commission. Of course, Walegrin had neither glory nor honor and his commissions thus far had been pedestrian-like duty at the Sanctuary garrison: the antithesis of honor and glory. "I will be known," he resolved after a moment's thought. "While I'm alive I'll be respected. When I'm dead I'll be memorialized-"

"You're already known, lad, or have you forgotten that? You have rediscovered Enlibar steel. You don't dare show your face because of it. How much honor and glory do you think you'll need before you can walk the streets of Ranke? Twenty five swords? Fifty swords? Do you think they'll believe you when you tell them we made the steel with bits of an old Wrigglie necklace? Eh?" Walegrin stood up. He paced a circle around the seated cripple. "I will succeed. I'll succeed now or die."

With a quick, invisible movement of his crutch, Balustrus brought Walegrin sprawling into the dust. "It is impolite to speak to the back of my head. Your fortunes have changed, and could change again. The Empire has never given you anything-and will not ever give you anything. But the Empire means nothing to Sanctuary.

"There is power here, lad, not glory or honor but pure power. Power you can use to buy all the honor and glory you want. I tell you, Walegrin-Jubal's not coming back. His world's ripe for taking."

"You've said that before. So Jubal rots under his mansion. How many bloodied hawkmasks have been nailed to the Downwind bridge? Even if I were tempted, there's nothing left."

"Tempus is culling the ranks for you. The wiserones are safe, I'm sure. They've heard Jubal isn't dead and they're waiting for his return-but they don't know everything."

There was an evil confidence to Balustrus' tone that made Walegrin wary. He never fully trusted the metal-master and trusted him less when he spoke in riddles.

"I was not always Balustrus. Once I was the Grey Wolf. Only twenty-five years ago I led all the Imperial legions into the mountains and broke the last Ilsig resistance. I broke it because I knew it. I was born in those mountains. The blood of kings and sorcerers runs in my veins, or it did. But I knew the days of kings were over and the days of Empire had come. I destroyed my own people hoping for honor and glory among the conquerors-" Walegrin cleared his throat loudly. There wasn't a citizen alive who hadn't heard of the Grey Wolf: a young man clothed in animal hides, given a hero's welcome in Ranke despite his Wrigglie past-and tragically killed in a fall from his horse. The whole capital had turned out for his funeral.

"Perhaps my friends in Ranke were the fathers of your friends," Balustrus said to Walegrin's skepticism. "I watched my own funeral from the gladiators'

galleries where drugged, stripped and branded I'd been left to die or improve my one-time friends' fortunes." He laughed bitterly. "I wasn't your ordinary Rankan general-they'd forgotten that. I could fight and I could forge weapons such as they'd never seen. I'd learned metal-mastery from my betrayed people."

"And Jubal-what's he got to do with this?" Walegrin finally asked.

"He came later. I'd fought and killed so often I'd been retired by my owners, but then the Emperor himself bought me, Kittycat's father. I trained the new slaves and Jubal was one of them. A paragon-he was born for the death-duel. I taught him every trick I knew; he was a son to me. I watched fortunes change everytime he fought. We soon both belonged to the Emperor. We drank together, whored together-the life of a successful gladiator isn't bad if you don't mind the brand and collar. I trusted him. I told him the truth about me.

"Two days later I was on the sand fighting against him. I hadn't fought for five years; but even at my best I was no match for him. We fought with mace and chain-his choice. He took my legs with his second swing. I had expected that, but I expected a quick, merciful death as well. I thought we were both slaves: equals and friends. He said: 'It's been arranged,' pointed to the Imperial balcony and struck my legs again.

"That was summer. It was winter when I opened my eyes again. A Lizerene healer was at my side congratulating himself on my recovery-but I had become this!" The metal-master jerked his tunic upward, revealing the remains of his legs. The moonlight softened the horror, but Walegrin could see the twisted remnants of muscle, the exposed lengths of bone, the scaly knobs that had once been knees. He looked away before Balustrus lowered the cloth.