Warrior (The Key to Magic) (7 page)

 "I am Commander-of-Legions Shrenko." The Phaelle'n made the introduction somewhat cheerily, just as if, rather than facing an enemy on the field of battle, he had been out for a casual stroll and had encountered a stranger. "And this is Commander-of-Cloisters Iynen."

Tall and broad-shouldered, with the dusky hair of the inland inhabitants of Trozae, Iynen had stopped slightly behind and to the right of Shrenko.  His face and manner revealed nothing.

When it was clear that the senior monk intended to say nothing else, Aerlon got right to the point.  He had offered the truce as a token homage to the code of warfare that his instructors had taught him.  His expectation was that the effort would be an exercise in futility.  Once this perfunctory proceeding had concluded, the battle and almost certain destruction of the Phaelle'n legions would begin.

"You are currently surrounded by a much superior force and also subject to an aerial attack for which you can offer no defense," Aerlon stated.  "To prevent the profitless loss of your entire command, I offer you unconditional surrender.  Should you accept, you and your armsmen will be imprisoned under honorable conditions for the duration of hostilities."

Shrenko leaned slightly sideways on his cane and allowed a brief smile.  "While I personally have no fundamental or personal philosophical objection to your terms, Coirneal, Commander-of-Cloisters Iynen would put his sword through my neck if I even hinted at accepting them."

The old monk did not bother to glance back at his subordinate as he spoke and Iynen's dispassionate expression and passive stance did not change.

"I am an old man, Coirneal," Shrenko continued in a conversational tone.  "You may not know this, but there is a certain unique perspective that comes to the old, a perspective that may have eluded them for their entire lives."

Aerlon did not know what to say to this so he said nothing.  He did, however, make sure that his hand was clear to draw his sword.

"When I was younger, the nature of the world was so very clear and my path through it undeniably self-evident.  Such unquestioned clarity was a great comfort.  Sadly, as I approach my own inevitable end, I find that clarity slipping away."

Shrenko rocked his weight to his right leg, apparently his good one, and raised his cane to make sharp gestures to punctuate his sentences.  "Where once I knew, now I question.  Where once I had faith, now I have doubt.  Where once I would act, now I hesitate.  I blame it all on the philosophers.  Did you know that since returning to cloister that I have developed an unquenchable appetite for the written word?  It is such a terribly time consuming vice.  Philosophers, yes, they are to blame.  Idiots, every one of them."

The Phaelle'n' commander broke into a wheezing, full-body wracking laugh. 

Aerlon could not help but smile at the incongruity of the monk's actions.

Then, almost too fast to see, Shrenko whipped about in a widdershins circle, arm and cane extended, and struck his fellow officer, who did not even have time to register surprise, behind the ear with the polished hardwood stick.   Iynen instantly pitched forward on his face, unconscious.

Aerlon's sword was out before the blindsided monk hit the ground.   Mehhglendt's blade was only slightly tardy in appearance.

Ignoring both, Shrenko prodded Iynen lightly with his cane as if to assure himself that the other monk was not faking, then turned about again to Aerlon.

"I must beg your pardon, Coirneal Aerlon, but Iynen is a man who is still young enough to retain his clarity and I did not want that undimmed vision to complicate these negotiations."

After a tense moment, Aerlon returned his sword to its sheath, but made sure to stay well out of reach of the cane.  Mehhglendt, watching Shrenko with obvious suspicion, kept his blade pointed squarely at the monk.

"Am I to understand that you wish to ask for a modification of terms?" Aerlon asked, wondering if the senior Phaelle'n's actions were some sort of elaborate subterfuge.

Shrenko did not smile.  "No, those you offer are acceptable and I agree to them without reservation.  When I have your permission, I will return and order my men to lay down their weapons.  We will offer no resistance."

Completely confounded, Aerlon asked, "Might I ask why?"

"Certainly.  When recalled from my cloister to take command here at Zhijj, I was given to understand that, while I would have an insufficient garrison, all of my armsmen would be dedicated Salients.  It was with some dismay that I learned that in fact, save for myself and Iynen, my legions were composed of conscripts and mercenaries who have no vested interest in the Work.  They obey my orders, but there is no fire in them.  Some, of course, would acquit themselves well in battle, but most, I am certain, would not.  Furthermore, I expect a high percentage of them to simply run away once the aerial bombardment begins.  I am a Salient.  It is my purpose to fight and, if such is my fate, to die to bring about the Restoration of Holy Magic to this world.   But I am also an old man and I have found that I have lost all patience for wasted effort and futile gestures."

Shrenko glanced down at Iynen.  "If you do not object to the suggestion, perhaps Brother Iynen should be bound in chains lest he be minded to make such a gesture."

A couple of hours later, while Relvhm and his Skyship Corps established a defensive perimeter and supervised the prisoners, Aerlon marched into Zhijj at the head of a column of his Scouts and the Volunteer Brigade.

No crowds gathered to laud this victorious entrance, but a few children did watch with wide eyes before their mothers shooed them away.

EIGHT

A moderate rain had taken up, adding a brisk chill to the air, but a relatively weak flux bubble twenty paces across kept Mar and the armsmen dry.  The unseen concave surface quickly concentrated the water into runnels and sheets that showered into the gutters of the narrow street and onto the roofs of the adjacent buildings, making it seem as if he and his guards were surrounded on all sides by a waterfall.  In the other buildings all about, shopkeepers and upstairs tenants, including a number of excited children, watched from doorways, balconies, and windows.  Many remarked and pointed at the wondrous magic that shed the rain. 

"Wait for me here," Mar ordered.

"A couple of us could accompany you into the shop, my lord king," Subaltern E’hve proposed. 

As he spoke, the leader of the King's Imperial Guard
,
the official successor to the Hangers-On, all score of whom were arrayed in a defensive perimeter in the narrow street, did not shift his eyes from a close examination of the two storey building before which Mar had stopped.  E'hve's stated position was that assassins were everywhere unless proven otherwise.

"Not necessary," Mar deferred in a firm tone.  "I won't be long."

While he did not consider his business here a great secret, his preference was that only the few initially involved have knowledge of it.

"Aye, my lord king."

In order to convince Mhiskva not to accompany him (with a full troop of marines) every time he made an excursion away from the Palace, either about the Citadel or into the city proper, Mar had had to promise the High-Captain that he would not elude his guards.    For the express purpose of freeing himself of the onerous labors of government, Mar had delegated oversight of all the routine administrative functions of the city as well as the day-to-day management of the Imperial war effort to the High-Captain in his capacity as Viceroy of Mhajhkaei.  Since this arrangement permitted Mar to fight Number One as he saw fit and freed the necessary time to pursue his magical research and other projects, he remained faithful -- at least during daylight hours -- to his promise.

A series of wide, brick-arched openings fronted the woodcrafter's shop.  The heavy wooden shutters used to seal the openings at night were folded into their niches, giving a clear view into the spacious but crowded interior.  As there were no intervening partitions, Mar could see all of the way to the back of the building where a matching set of arches framed a rain shrouded courtyard.  This design clearly allowed the free and constant movement of air to keep the wood dust from becoming too thick.  At the right and left outside walls, racks held full stacks of common lumbers and isolated lengths of rarer woods.  The muted noise of hammers, saws, and sanding blocks echoed slightly throughout.

Though the flagstone floor was fresh swept, the half dozen large workbenches, where an equal number of men and women were occupied, had various accumulations of sawdust, wood chips, and shavings.  While these crafters turned intermittent curious looks toward Mar and the King's Imperial Guard, they did not interrupt their efforts on the incomplete chairs, tables, cabinets, and other not readily identifiable products on which they worked.

When Mar walked into the building, an older man with a black beard trimmed to a sharp point and short, tightly curled black hair stepped away from the hand crank on a lathe, allowing the flywheel and its attached gearbox to wind down with a gradually diminishing shrill groan, and approached.  His stride was energetic and his smile not just professional or obsequious, but genuinely welcoming.

"Happy Fourteenthday to you, my lord king!  I am Ghimrael.  Welcome to my shop."

Master Woodcrafter Ghimrael was, according to the Scout Corps, an avid reader of the works of the eleventh century AFE philosopher Bhurghought, whose voluminous recorded thought could be boiled down, in Mar's opinion, to the simple optimistic phrase "Every day is a good day."

Like the other trappings of kingship, Mar had grown inured to the notoriety.  As a thief, anonymity had been an essential component of his survival.  As a king, it seemed that there was not one soul in the city who could not recognize him on sight.

"Thank you, Master Ghimrael.  I've come to commission two custom items."

"Certainly, my lord king."   The master woodworker did not proceed to regale Mar with examples of the previous quality of his work as some would have but rather simply waited for him to continue.

"I want two wooden legs."

Ghimrael glanced down for an unguarded second at the empty space between the hems of Mar's shortened trousers and the stone floor. 

"I take it that you do not simply wish to be fitted with peg legs, my lord king?  You'd have to use crutches, but we do keep several in stock that we could fit to you."

"No.  I want artificial legs that bend exactly as real legs do and have the strength to support my weight.  I also want them to give the semblance of real legs as much as is possible under my trousers."

Clearly reluctant, Ghimrael raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms.  "I can't say that we've ever done such a thing."

"You made the carvings for the frieze of the temple of B'g'n, didn't you?"

"Why, yes, my lord king.  Or, rather, my youngest daughter did.   Ordeliea can carve very accurate anatomical reproductions in relief -- she's quite the artist -- but she's never attempted a freestanding sculpture.  Statues are almost never done in wood.  It's a matter of moisture absorption, cracking, and warping, you see."

Mar looked around.  "Is she here?"

The master woodworker pointed at a young woman in cotton work clothes and a leather full length apron who was in the process of assembling a delicate rocking chair. 

"Right there, my lord king."

With the shop owner following, Mar drifted down the aisle between the work benches, nodding a distracted greeting to the other workers, and produced a smile to greet the daughter.  "Ordeliea?"

Save for eye and hair color, Ghimrael's daughter did not favor him at all, which was probably a good thing.  With her hair done up in a single rolled braid, she was a good bit shorter, light of complexion and pretty in an industrious way.  Her delicate, long-fingered hands showed the prominent veins of someone who had always done manual work.

Returning his smile, she bowed.  "Good Fourteenthday."

"Do you think that you could carve a pair of legs for me?"

She looked down to consider Mar's missing limbs.  "Just something ornamental?"

"No, they'll need to look and move like normal legs.  I'm going to animate them with magic. I want to be able to walk, sit, and most importantly stand."

She pursed her lips.  "Please don't take offence, my lord king, but isn't flying better?"

"Not for everything and it can be taxing when I'm juggling several spells at once."

"They'll attach to your, ah..."

"My stumps, yes."

"Well, I'd have to take some exact measurements of your person, of course, but I'm sure that I could carve an acceptable thigh, calf and foot -- perhaps out of red oak.  I'm not sure how they could be attached, though, and the hinges for the knee and ankle would have to be something special.  A simple loop and pin hinge wouldn't work.  Both the knee and ankle articulate on more than one axis, with varying degrees of restraint." 

She stuck out a shoe clad foot and trouser clad leg and wiggled both to demonstrate.

"If you want a normal range of motion," Ghimrael opined, "the joints would have to be custom made and would wear better if done out of hard yellow brass."

"So you can make the legs?" Mar pressed.

Ghimrael rubbed the side of his face with the flat of his hand.  "Master Tribiz, a brass smith just a bit down the street, might be able to come up with something for the joints.  He makes coiled spring clocks and intricate mechanical toys.  We'd probably have to work through several prototypes that you'd have to try out, so it would be rather expensive and it might take a while to get something suitable.  They could wind up being rather heavy though."

"I can manage the weight as long as there is a good mass of solid wood that I can manipulate."

The master crafter gave a slow nod.  "Well, we'll start immediately then."

Mar put a stack of ten gold thalars on the workbench.  "Here's a deposit.  Just let me know when you need more."

When Mar exited the shop, he found a messenger from the Palace waiting with Subaltern E’hve.