Temple of the Traveler: Book 01 - Doors to Eternity (31 page)

“Well, I guess it’s a good thing I added the hilt weaponry so that I can keep the blade pretty for display,” the smith said. The two laborers relaxed on the bench, staring at the unfinished sword.

Calmer after a few moments of silent reflection, the smith noted, “You seem to be under a lot of stress since your last discussion with your steward. Is there something you’re not telling me?”

Strellikan mopped his uncovered brow. Only after the first full day of work was the smith able to convince him to remove the wig to provide some relief from the heat. “Word on the royal grapevine is bad. One fact is clear: the Prefect of Bablios has initiated war with the northern kingdoms. Rumors are abounding. The Pretender has long been collecting practitioners of the ancient arts, and we fear what we may face on the battlefield.”

The smith shrugged. “Technically we never declared peace. Both sides just waited long enough to raise another generation of soldiers that didn’t know how horrible war can get. Fodder always means more in a battle than magic. None of that should affect gilding this blade.”

“Mr. Anonymous, I thought I was cynical. Fundamentally, I agree. In the abstract, this sword doesn’t need to be completed tonight or in this dangerous place. What has me worried is how many people believe this is a sign that the Third Doom is descending.” When the smith furrowed his brow, the aristocrat explained. “Speculation and epic history are great hobbies of the under-employed upper class. The First Doom formed the Great Inner Sea. The Second Doom began the Scattering. Scholars and armchair prophets predict that the Third Doom will be on a greater scale than either of the previous disasters. This complicates many of my plans, including the fate of this blade.”

Strellikan rose and began cleaning soot and stains off himself with a cloth. “Regardless of which faction claims Innisport, I must remain in favor with each. To that end, tomorrow morning I’ll present the keys to the Mint to House Kragen before they send an emissary to take them. To prove to Bablios that I’m still loyal, I’ll send the sword of the Defender to the Great Library of Eskelon so that the Prefect can use it in his campaign against the North. While you’re at the Library, you should be able to research what happened to the real sword, the original.”

The smith nodded. “Do you think they’ll know?”

Strellikan stroked his chin. “If they don’t know, they’ll have enough evidence to point a finger. Nieral was too clean to have participated in a charade knowingly. The switch had to have come before him. From local records, I ascertained that the previous chief bodyguard of Myron was a fellow by the name of Akashua. He’d be an excellent starting point for your search. Tell your hosts that you’re learning the lineage of the Defender back to its creation. You may have to engage in some of those violations of security that got you here in the first place. Don’t draw attention to the truth or let them suspect how much you really know.”

The smith grinned at the long list of instructions, worse than a parent to a child on his first campout. “For tonight I must be more clever and more skilled than both of us combined. How am I going to get out of this war zone and into the next, or do I need to learn to fly tonight as well?”

“Arrangements are in progress. I’ve paid for a small watercraft to ferry you out of Innisport under cover of fog. You must escort the sword to the fisherman’s wharf before first light. I’ll provide you with whatever you require.”

“Whoa,” said the smith. “Don’t you know that Kragen owns the water people? Whatever you tell them will go straight to the Lady’s ears.”

The aristocrat seemed truly abashed for the first time since the smith had met him. “Oh, dear. That does cause a problem. I’ve already paid for the boat and the wards. What should I do?”

The smith thought for a moment of his astronomer friend Pinetto. “I know someone who might help for the right inducement. Does Eskelon have a decent university of its own?”

The smith said, “No, those only get in the way. I just want the best quality available. We’ll need a letter of recommendation to the university there and a writ of passage.”

“What you don’t know you can’t reveal when Navara tortures you,” said the former executioner matter-of-factly. This earned him a raised eyebrow and silent assent.

“Your supplies will await you on a cart in the stables,” said the Lord of the Mint.

“Your dedication to the empire is exceeded only by your kindness,” the smith said, extending his hand. The aristocrat refused to shake; instead, the older man clasped him close and whispered, “Godspeed.”

Without pause, the smith resumed his struggle with their sesterina experiments. He lost his grip on his tongs when a low voice sounded behind him. “I thought I’d never catch you alone.”

The executioner spun around to see a dwarf lurking in the shadows. The short, stout visitor was concealed in a much-patched, brown cloak. He had a bulbous nose and bulging eyes beneath an uninterrupted, bushy brow. A curly wreath of hair jutted out from beneath a rumpled, leather hat. Two strands of hair poked out near his temples, resembling horns in the dim light. Recognizing the artificer from Kragen’s palace, he forced his heart rate to slow and returned to his task. His calm amused Dvardoc. “I expected you to react with more violence.”

The smith dipped a dagger tip in molten sesterina and removed it as quickly as possible. “I attack only violent people who won’t listen to reason. You are a builder, not a destroyer, thus nothing to fear.” So saying, he began hammering the piece once the metal had begun to congeal.

Now the dwarf warmed to him and trundled closer to watch him work. “Not afraid of me? I suppose I could take offense, but I choose to take it as a compliment and a sign of good judgment.”

“What I meant was that you present no threat. If your friends in House Kragen knew where I was, I’d be dead already. You want to talk. I imagine you’ve been looking for us ever since we broke those stones of yours.” The muscular smith towered over his visitor as he set the test dagger aside to cool and strode over to make a few final adjustments to the sword hilt.

The dwarf climbed up on a bench and continued to watch the smith work with a critical eye. “I’ve had a lot of more important things to attend to. I just got around to you. I like the design; your form follows functionality quite elegantly. Unfortunately, you don’t know a thing about precious-metal work and your work area is a sty.”

The dwarf was not persuaded. “Holy man, disciple, devotee, friend, whatever you are calling it these days, you belong to him. You quote from his book, wear his symbol, grew up in the Temple of Tamarind Pass and followed one of his high priests, that fellow you called Tashi.” Dvardoc stared at him, daring the former executioner to contradict this logic.

The smith rubbed his forehead, trying to come to grips with this new, unexpected classification. “I never thought of it that way. But what good is a spokesman for the gods who won’t speak? Now that I’m his priest, I’m more useless than he. Thanks to you I’m now an outlaw for yet another reason.”

The dwarf shook his head. “Your traveler studied under each of the gods. From what he learned, Calligrose communicated what he thought appropriate. His words still instruct men today, which makes him far from useless. Why are you despairing? He’s been silent for long periods of time before.”

“Never for this long,” refuted the smith. “And always for a reason. Each wait brought us a new revelation, a new book, and a new branch of the six-fold path.”

Dvardoc shrugged. “Maybe he’s busy with a particularly long book this time.”

The smith shook his head. “No. The Book of Arms was his last gift to man. At the end of it, he said there would be no more. If the Traveler really forged that sword, why aren’t the instructions contained in the final book?”

“I’m sure there were many dangerous things that he wisely chose not to share.” The dwarf looked pensive. “‘No more.’ What an interesting turn of phrase. Among other things, it would imply that he has told you everything you need to know. This should make you glad for the silence.”

Dvardoc stood on the worktable and walked over to stare the smith in the eyes. It was all the tall man could do not to flinch under the scrutiny. The smith could see every age line and every clogged pore on the dwarf’s face. “In a single hour, you and your gang of killers laid waste to a decade of my best effornd those of my allies.”

The smith’s first instinct was to defend his order. “The Brotherhood is a rare force for good in these chaotic times. They execute criminals.”

Dvardoc spit on the ground. “More accurately, in exchange for money, they murder those labeled as criminals.”

“Every one of them had sworn warrants against them,” said the smith, but his words rang hollow even in his own ears.

“The winner often demonizes his opponent in history. Losing a land dispute shouldn’t carry a death sentence. Your precious Book of Arms says that men accused by the council of elders of a town may turn over men to you after an investigation and a trial. Usually that meant a sentence to work crews for the good of the entire realm, and even then the convicted had choices. What you did was butchery, not justice.”

“That’s your opinion,” the smith mumbled. “Again, why did you seek me out?”

“You left your friends to die in a ditch. Furthermore, you left a great deal of treasure behind. Neither action would be likely for a member of your guild. Why?” the dwarf demanded.

The accusation fell like a hammerblow on his chest. When he could breathe again, the smith whispered, “The Defender of the Realm is bigger than my friendships or mere money. The Defender is more important than my very life. I could’ve surrendered it a dozen times, but the charge the sheriff laid upon me won’t let me.”

Dvardoc rumbled and nodded. “That’s what I was hoping to hear.” The dwarf paced atop the table, still rumbling like a bear as he thought. After a few moments, he turned to the exhausted smith and said, “I shall assist you. Later, I’ll tell you what you’ll do to repay me. For now, I’m going to try to repair the damage you two have done to this beautiful blade. Meanwhile, get the gilding apparatus over there loaded. We’ll use the heat of the blade to bond the final coat in place.”

Taking a pouch full of metallic lotus petals from beneath the mysteries of his cape, Dvardoc handed the delicate sesterina to the smith. “You’ll need some of these. Nothing against him, but your coin maker never would’ve gotten the mixture right. These are the secret ingredient used in making all holy swords. Your sheriff friend gave them to me.”

“Where is he?” the smith asked, hoping against hope that the sheriff might appear soon and take this burden back from him.

Dvardoc grunted. “Heading into the eye of the bloody storm up north. I hear you’ll be going to the front lines soon, too.” The smith nodded. Without another word, he obeyed, while the dwarf stripped down to work. It took Dvardoc almost two hours to meticulously straighten and reorder the forge, change the anvil height, re-rig the bellows and get the smell of the fire right.

But once he was ready, Dvardoc was a model of efficiency. Not a single movement was wasted. The smith learned years’ worth of apprenticeship training for every minute he watched, but the dwarf kept sending him on petty errands to prepare for whatever the next step might have been. Scarcely one hour after the hot work began, the thrice-forged blade was placed still-smoldering into the jeweler’s gilding device. The smith marveled as the lotus petals melted into place like butter on a hot biscuit. “Amazing. How did you manage this?” he asked with awe in his voice. With his back to the dwarf, the smith feathered the last of the sesterina into place while the sword cooled/p>

The dwarf answered while re-dressing. “The kings of the north have taken many things from me and forced me to suffer many indignities. But they couldn’t take away my gift.”

The smith gazed down at the mirror-like surface. “Sir, I am truly honored to work in your presence.”

The dwarf smiled. “I’m pleased how it turned out as well. I added something special to this one, a drop of my own blood. When any Honor forged by my people strikes it, your attacker’s blade will break. Indeed, there may even be a slight aversion between the two, like lodestones. It should provide you with a small measure of added protection as you complete your quest.”

The sword in the smith’s hands seemed to grow heavier. He dared not look up. He suspected the truth, but couldn’t raise his head. He swallowed hard. Every part of his body felt weighed down as if by a thick, winter blanket. “Yes, Lord?”