Paul Kemp - The Hammer and the Blade

"Bottom rung on top now, eh?" Jyme said.

"Maybe for now," Nix answered.

They were in a dirt-floored warehouse filled with barrels, amphorae, sacks, and crates. A block and tackle, and a net for loading transport carts hung from the ceiling. Nix looked for any trading coster marks, but saw none. It was probably a rented warehouse used to move illicit goods.

Egil was on the ground near Nix, and Baras pulled the bag from his head. Like Nix, the priest blinked in the lantern light. Nix eyed the man who'd been speaking, the man who purported to have authority to issue them orders.

He wore a tailored shirt of silk and trousers of velvet, with a high-collared fur-ruffed wool cape thrown over the whole. A thin sword — a nobleman's blade, not a warrior's — hung from a wide belt with a silver buckle. His narrow face, combined with his sharp nose and the widely spaced, deep-set eyes, gave him a reptilian cast. His short brown hair had a part in it as sharp and straight as a plumb line. Dark circles stained the skin under his bloodshot eyes. He looked like he hadn't slept in days.

"You're the Lord Mayor's sorcerer," Nix said, recognizing the man's face. He searched his mind for a name, couldn't quite find it.

"I'm the Lord Mayor's Adjunct," the man corrected, and then Nix had the name.

"Rakon Norristru."

Rakon held the ivory and pearl wand Nix had taken from the tomb of Abn Thahl, the wand with which he'd accidentally shrunk himself and Egil.

Seeing it, Nix winced with embarrassment. Rakon pointed the wand at Nix.

"My men say you know a bit about sorcery. History, too, I gather, from your knowledge of Abn Thuset."

"I had a year at the Conclave."

Rakon's thin eyebrows went up. "Really? And how might you have afforded such an education?"

Nix did not bother with the sordid story that ended with him stealing an education from a dead man. "Well, that's a tale long in telling. I managed, let's say."

"Hmm. And you dropped out after a year?"

"No!" Nix said, trying to stand and nearly toppling himself sidewise in his irritation. "Dammit! Why does everyone assume I dropped out? I was expelled after a year. Expelled."

Rakon nodded, not really listening. He tapped the wand on his palm. His hands were small, the fingers long.

"Well, in that year you seem to have learned only enough to endanger yourself. I looked through your satchel. It's filled with magical trinkets you're probably too stupid or undereducated to use properly."

"Listen, if you're trying to charm me with kind words…" Nix said.

"A bag of gewgaws," Egil breathed contemptuously.

"Unhelpful," Nix snapped at him.

"Perhaps you should stick to plying the many blades my men removed from your person?" Rakon said.

"Perhaps," Nix grumbled. "I'd give much to have one in hand right now."

"I'd wager you would," Rakon said. He bent down and held the wand before Nix's eyes. He tapped the pearl tip on the end of Nix's nose. "You see that?"

Nix went cross-eyed. "Well, no, not really."

"That's an inversion notation, written in the Mages' Tongue. You missed it, I assume, unless you intended to shrink and weaken yourself and the priest?"

The guards chuckled.

"Probably you thought it would make you stronger, larger?"

Nix felt himself color. Egil had the good grace not to mock him.

"Leave off, Adjunct," Egil said.

" Lord Adjunct," Baras corrected.

"Adjunct is what he gets from me," Egil said again, and stuck out his jaw.

Rakon did not look at Egil. He stood up straight, looming over Nix. A dark look came into his reptilian eyes.

"The wand is Afirion, is it not? How did you come to possess it?"

"As you'd expect," Nix said.

"You stole it?"

"'Stole' is a strong word. We took it, and other things, from a tomb in Afirion."

"The tomb of Abn Thahl," Rakon said softly. His knuckles were white around the wand.

"Aye. How would you know that? Abn Thahl is an obscure, minor wizard-king of the nineteenth dynasty who ruled only three years."

"There are many things I know," Rakon said, his jaw clenching, as if he were biting down on more words he'd like to say. "Were there… guardians in the tomb?"

Nix had no idea where the questioning was going. He looked to Egil but the priest shrugged, his expression puzzled.

"Were there?" Rakon pressed.

"Answer him," Baras said.

"Of course there were. There always are with Afirion tombs. There were walking dead, deadfalls, an acid trap, a devil."

Some of the guards smirked with disbelief, others went wide-eyed.

Rakon kneeled, jabbed at Nix's cheek with the wand as if he would stab him through the eye with it. "Killed devils, have you? Have you?"

Nix leaned back, bewildered. Anger brewed behind Rakon's eyes, and Nix had no idea what had put it there. Whatever control he thought he'd had over the discussion had just been lost. At the moment Rakon looked capable of anything.

"I… don't know what to say."

He could not bring himself to call Rakon "my lord."

Rakon inhaled and stood. Staring down at Nix, he snapped the wand between his fingers. It died in a puff of smoke and green sparks.

"Say nothing, Nix Fall. I've heard all I need to hear. You two are the men I want for this task. So you're the men I'll have."

"Is that so?" Egil said, his tone threatening. "I guess we'll see about that."

"Egil…" Nix began.

"Oh, I know threats would be idle," Rakon said.

"Depends on the threat, I suppose," Nix said thoughtfully. "Egil is terrified of-"

"So I'll make none. But you'll do what I wish nevertheless. You know I'm the Lord Mayor's personal sorcerer, yes?"

Nix nodded.

Rakon smiled at him, took a step back, and looked to Baras. "The priest first. Then the talker."

"My lord," Baras said, and he, Jyme, and a third guard took station around Egil.

A vein rose in Egil's brow, thick and pulsing, but he did not gratify them with fear or a pointless struggle. Instead, he stared straight at Rakon, his eyes holding a promise of eventual violence, as he awaited whatever was coming.

"None of this is necessary," Nix said. "Whatever this is. You want our help. We'll give it. Egil, tell him you're reasonable."

Egil spit a glob of phlegm at Rakon's shoes.

"Among the hill people that's a sign of friendship," Nix tried.

"Shut up," Jyme said.

"This will be uncomfortable," Rakon said to Egil, and began a recitation in the Mages' Tongue, the language sharp-edged, ragged.

"Shite," Nix muttered, squirming against his bonds to no avail.

The magical words seemed to have a physical existence as they exited Rakon's mouth, the syllables pelting Nix like hail. He could not follow the incantation, could only blink against the growing magical energy. Even Rakon's guards — even Jyme — looked uneasy in the presence of the sorcery.

The energy in the room gradually intensified, manifesting as a distortion in the air that snaked behind the sorcerer's gesturing hands. When Nix finally recognized the nature of the spell, the hairs on his neck rose.

"There's no need for this," Nix said, struggling with his bonds to no avail. "Shite, shite."

"Nix?" Egil asked, looking at him sidelong.

"A compulsion," Nix said. "A spellworm."

Egil cursed, kicked at the guards around him with his bound legs. The men, cursing, pushed him flat onto his back.

Jyme secured his legs, Baras held him down at the shoulders, and the third guard lay across his chest. Rakon stepped over to Egil, still incanting, the energy trailing his gestures in a finger-thick rope of reified magic.

Nix shouted to Egil in Urgan, Egil's native tongue, the language of the hill folk of the north. He hoped no one else in the room understood him.

"Focus on Ebenor, Egil! Look to your faith! You have to preserve a piece of your will. Your life depends on it! Focus on Ebenor!"