The Four Forges (35 page)

His brothers laughing at him, Keldan fingered the reins tighter and gave a tight cluck to move smartly out after Tolby and the carriage cart, which headed north and west as soon as they passed the gates. Rivergrace craned her head back to look at them, massive, with copper shielding that had been pounded out in a pattern of circles and stars which dazzled her eye when she tried to follow the train of the etchings. They trotted and bumped and rattled across streets that were as much flat stone as hard-packed dirt. Tight narrow streets lined with buildings that leaned upon each other gave way to wider streets, with buildings no less close to each other but far greater and grander. Then, after many streets, the lane widened and wandered a bit, and the buildings here had room between them, if only so that they might fall down in piles of refuse that spilled out onto the roadways. Things skittered from them, even in broad daylight, that moved too fast for Grace to identify although she knew their ilk well enough.

Nutmeg pitched an apple core at one with unerring accuracy, and the rodent disappeared with a disagreeable squeal under a heap of garbage. She sniffed. The cart and wagon continued to rumble northward, through most of the far-flung city, with Grace and Nutmeg talking to each other about how people could live so close and where their gardens might be, until the narrow streets broke into wide, rutted lanes and houses became small farms and stockyards, and then even vineyards and orchards, with a stony ridge of sharp hills replacing the actual walls of the city, and it was toward this end, where finer houses and shops began again, that Tolby turned the cart and the wagon followed, down a broken-stone road where weeds dotted the gutters and the shops grew smaller and shakier. So odd to see how the finery of the city grew and shrank without warning, and although they were far from the rodent-filled garbage heaps near the gate, this quarter of the city was old and quiet and faded looking. It was outside the Northern Gate, Tolby pointed out, the gates massive wooden posts that swung across the curving lane, cutting off the quarter they drove into, which sprawled over low hills where the city had literally overflowed its ancient boundaries and nurseries and small farms nestled right up to the lanes.

He pulled up at a rundown establishment, a brewery and winery, whose warehouse doors were thrown wide open and two carts were being hurriedly loaded inside even as Tolby jumped down and strode in. They all followed, although Keldan kept a hand on Nutmeg’s shoulders and Garner stayed at Rivergrace’s side, for the men inside were Kernans, tall and rough-cheeked and a surly looking lot.

“What goes on here?” And Tolby raised his voice to be sure he could be heard over the din of the movers.

“Place is going. We’ve orders to strip it bare.” A stoop-shouldered Kernan with cheeks shadowed blue-black with stubble patted his pocket, and parchment rustled there.

“The place is gone,” Tolby told him. “Into my hands, lock, stock, and barrel from Mistress Greathouse. And,” he turned on his heel, gesturing to the carts. “If I’m not mistaken, those are my barrels.”

The stoop-shouldered man let out a curse and simply ran from the warehouse, without another look backward, leaving his crew dumbfounded, their hands full of crates and barrels, and their jaws hanging.

“Put everything back and I’ll not have the guards on you,” Tolby told them. “Following your orders, you were, even if the man giving them is a thief.”

The Kernans did as suggested, grumbling a bit, and cheering up only when Tolby opened a keg of hard cider from their own wagon for them, and they left with a promise to look in now and then for odd labor. After the other carts had pulled out, Tolby closed the warehouse and they went to look at the housing and the press.

A strong wind might have blown down their new home, from the looks of the weathered and leaning wood. The well in the back had been boarded over and lay under a heap of composting leaves, and the small vineyard looked as if it had never seen rain or a pruning hand, although it stretched for a good bit off the street and into the free hills off the northern gate. Tolby scratched his head in dismay and looked at the ruins. “What have I done?”

Lily put her hands on her hips. “I’ve slept in a cellar and up a tree. The floor looks all right for tonight! Then, we’ll see.”

A FOG CREPT UP the foot of the great oceanside cliff, buoyed by the heaviness of the sea and its spray below it, battling for a greater hold on the shore but soon to lose it to the blast of summer’s sun and heat. Yet it lay frothy gray and white over the tumbled stone and sand and looked convincingly as if it might gain hold as it glided off the gray-blue waters and onto land. Tranta climbed out of the fog and mist, hand over hand, foothold by foothold, scaling pylons that had grown ancient, though he remembered the day they’d been placed in the rock. Although, admittedly, he’d been but knee-high then.

Tranta adjusted his ropes and reset himself, feeling the dampness of the fog trying to seep inside his clothes, but he did not mind the chill even though the wind pressed and keened by him. He’d inherited this task, but he’d begged for it long before that, and it had often been his before it became part of his legacy. Now he did it thoughtfully, lovingly, meditating as he climbed as effortlessly as others set out for a stroll. The sea cliff knew him, and welcomed him. The Jewel would be another matter altogether. Its fire could scald him as well as any intruders sailing along the coast, making for the great, widespread natural harbor far below him.

The Jewel of Tomarq should recognize him as from the bloodline which made it, but there were times when it had not, and those times had all come recently. The moment of acknowledgment each time had come closer and closer to the moment of immolation and annihilation for which it had been created. His jaw tightened as he scaled another rocky ledge and paused a moment, gathering both his breath and his resolve. The mists swirled down below as if another stirred them yet unsettled by his own passing and by the wind off the ocean which would soon sweep them away altogether. His dark blue hair had been slicked by the dampness to his head and down the back of his neck, and he thought to himself that he might have considered doing this another day.

Few were the days, however, that did not begin with heavy fog about the cliffs on which the Jewel was mounted, and Tranta berated himself for being a coward. As his brother had instructed him, he should remind the Jewel that it came from his blood, not that he belonged to it. Who was master here?

It did not take a genius to feel that, undoubtedly, the being with enough power to incinerate an invading fleet would be the master. Tranta wiped his face with the back of his hand and resumed climbing.

By the time he reached the uppermost edge, the mists had curled away and the wind which whipped about had nearly dried his hair. Sun blazed down from a sky so blue it looked like a brittle shard of agate, and he secured his climbing rope in his harness and stretched to loosen his muscles before stepping toward the metal-and-gem rigging known as the Jewel of Tomarq or the Shield of Tomarq. If those of Kerith had had their way, there would be a temple here, with priestesses and novitiates worshiping the Jewel as it deserved, he thought. His mouth twitched. A novitiate might actually be welcome, but his House had never let a temple be built. For one thing, the power of the Jewel was such that those living nearby would be at risk—as the Jewel itself would be. Constant vibrations would mean frequent retooling, danger to them all. Not to mention that it was not a Godly thing at all, but a highly tuned focus, magically formed yet chiseled by mortal hands and eyes.

Rock crunched under his light step as he approached, and scraggly brush that grew determinedly out of cracks tried to entangle his ankles, but all his thoughts were bent upon the Jewel. He could feel, as well as hear, its hum below the sun, feel its Eye searching for enemies upon the sea, and he spread his palms. His ears filled with its deep, heavy thrum, almost out of range of his hearing, keen as it was. He filled his mind with its existence, how it had been conceived and labored to be made, and his House which had brought it into being, and after many, many long moments of him standing there, wind and sun beating upon him, he could feel the regard of the Jewel turn partially from the ocean and upon him.

The razor’s edge of its sensing swept over him. Now came the moment of his most extreme danger, and the urging for him to assert himself as its ultimate master pushed at him, shoved at him, and Tranta ignored it. Not master, perhaps, but . . . brother. He could never make a Jewel of this sort, although he could unmake it, and he could tend it. Heat shimmered over his body, the heat of a firebrand, of the sun, of ten suns, and then it passed. A sudden chill fell over him in its absence, and Tranta shivered.

He stepped into its aura and placed his hands upon the rigging, testing it, finding the gold-and-platinum-spun rope as solid as ever, resistant against wind and rain and salt and blasts of sand. He checked the arms and gears which turned the Jewel from side to side, slowly, ponderously, but the faceting of the Shield was such that it almost continuously faced the curve of the entire harbor, so that its minute shifting did not reduce its effectiveness. It was a marvel, he thought for the hundredth time during his legacy, a marvel of both magic and engineering. The oils which lubricated the gears lightly were fed by a great barrel which leaked slowly where needed. He checked the drum and found it still half full, not needing stocking for at least a hand’s worth of decades.

Lastly, he stroked the gem itself, massive, as tall as a house and wide, although much thinner, dwarfing him. Only the cliff it resided upon seemed bigger, and that not by much. He took a tuning fork from his vest pocket, put it against the gem, and listened to the vibration it transmitted to the instrument. Nothing to be done. He pocketed the object thoughtfully. Weaker, ever weaker, but nothing to be done. He mulled it over. The vibrations were correct, but fading, as if a mere echo of the original tone which focused the Shield, and, like all echoes, must eventually still. Everything else worked impeccably and would unless disrupted purposefully, but the Jewel itself failed, and he had no way with which to stop it. It was time, he thought, to let the others know so that it might be dealt with. If it was his failure, he must bear it.

If it was not, Gods help them all. There might not be a remedy.

He stroked the gem one last time, carefully, reverently. “For all that,” he murmured, “you are magnificent.”

Pebbles crunched behind him. “Indeed,” a hoarse voice agreed.

Tranta swung about.

A being stood at the cliff’s edge, dressed in rags which had once been elegant clothes, the elaborate hilt of a back-sheathed sword sticking out above his shoulder. He wrapped a climbing rope about his other shoulder, and wore a harness similar to Tranta’s. “Thank you for leading the way up.” He moved forward with a broken gait, and something feral gleamed in his eyes, eyes that marked him as one of them. Tranta had never seen him before, and that in itself brooked deep suspicion.

“What do you want here?”

“Merely paying homage, like yourself.” The figure halted, not far from him, but out of sword’s reach.

“Leave and leave now before you are burned to ashes.”

The man laughed sharply. “If you could have done so, you would have. The Shield does not turn her eye for you alone.” His hands stayed at his sides.

Tranta’s fingers flexed of their own volition. “Leave.”

The man shook his head slowly. “I have business here, worshiping the great Shield, the Jewel of Tomarq.” And he smiled humorlessly, his mouth strained in a lopsided gash.

Tranta reached for his throwing daggers, but he never touched them. The intruder lunged with a speed Tranta could never have predicted, great even for a Vaelinar, grasped him, and threw him aside. Rock crumbled as Tranta rolled, attempting to get to his feet, but his legs dangled over nothingness.

He clawed for a hold on the cliff’s edge, even as sand, dirt, and pebbles began to give way under him. He saw the other take a great hammer from inside his ragged coat and heft it, swinging at the Jewel. It struck with a boom, a vibration of thunder that deafened Tranta as a handful of shards rained off the gem’s faceted surface, and the voice of the hammer blew away the cliffside entirely, and he plummeted downward.

It struck his mind as he fell, that he had always feared the fire of the Jewel. It never occurred to him that he could fall from the cliff. He fought to arch his body into a dive.

A STEP SOUNDED OUTSIDE the warehouse, a firm, solid boot step but barely heard over the noise of sweeping and hauling. Tolby quirked his head before throwing the door open to see who stood outside.

A broad-shouldered Kernan stood squinting in the bright sunlight, his rich garments and jewels bespeaking a comfortable wealth. He wore his brown hair braided along the skull, then falling freely to sweep his neck and shoulders; it smelled of scented oil and glistened in the bright summer sun. He might have looked like any trader in his prime, although far more fit than most, but the dark mahogany skin of his exposed right wrist and hand so different from his Kernan fair skin, as well as the sword belted on his right hip, betrayed his identity. A cleverly made metal cage embraced his right leg from ankle to hip over his well-cut pants. Tolby would have known him even for the years passed between them, although it took him but a moment. Tolby bowed. “Derro and g’day, Master Oxfort.”

Bregan Oxfort gave a wry smile, acknowledging that trying to conceal who he was would be an utter waste of time. Age had given him a few fine lines about his pale blue eyes, but he was definitely his father’s son still. He showed no recognition of Tolby in his own gaze, frank and direct though it was. He leaned slightly on a cane, more for effect than for weakness of his body, and pointed his chin to the building. “About time Mistress Greathouse thought to clean this up. Readying for a sale, is she?” And a light sparked deep in his trader’s eyes as if ignited by his words, the only thing about the meeting which truly interested him.