Jonathan Strahan - Swords & Dark Magic - The New Sword and Sorcery

They ate. They had a good breakfast, and water—there was beer, too, but Master said they should save that until later, and Tewk said that was a good idea. Maybe he’d had Wiggy’s beer.

Master clapped Willem on the shoulder as he stood in the doorway, and Willem took one scared look back, afraid it was going to break his concentration. He looked at Almore and Jezzy, and the little room with all its shelves and books and papers, and their little table and benches and their pallets, and the faded red curtain—Master had a bed beyond that, in a little nook.

It was home.

Last, he looked Master in the eyes. They were gray and watery but they were still sharp enough to see all the way inside him, he was very sure of that.

“Yes, sir,” he said, and went out into the Alley. His Alley. With Tewk striding along with him.

“You lead,” Tewk said, which didn’t make him feel that much better.

“Mmm,” he said, trying not to talk. He was thinking hard, exactly how the Alley was, how there was just one door, to the Ox, and that was just a little blind pocket of an Alley, nothing interesting at all. He wasn’t interesting. He was just a kid in un-dyed linsey-woolsey, which mostly ended up gray or nondescript brown, a kid with brown hair, a nondescript face, maybe acne—nobody would look twice; and Tewk was just a workman with a hat, just a skullcap, and needed a shave, and carried a sack lunch and a hammer, which wasn’t against the law. They immediately found the Ox in front of them, and went in by the back door.

“Say, here!” Hersey said. “You think you can just walk through wi’ them dusty boots? We’re not the public walk, here! I just swept that floor!”

Hersey didn’t recognize them. Not at all.

“Sorry,” Willem said in a different voice, and he and Tewk walked out through the front door and kept going, up the street where he had never gone.

But he didn’t let himself think that. He came up this way a lot. So did Tewk. They were father and son, well, maybe a youngish uncle, and he was learning stonemasonry, and there was something—a cracked stone—wanting repairing up the hill.

Maybe it was inside the palace gate, that stone. Stones cracked in summer heat, just now and again, especially along old cracks, and they might want that fixed. They did. They’d be taking the measure for it and matching some chips for the color: he knew about stonemasons. His father had been—

His uncle was. Uncle Tewk. They were guild folk, and important in their own way, and gate guards were going to remember them when they saw them, that they had been coming and going through that gate for days.

He couldn’t sweat. It was a warm day, but he couldn’t sweat. They were going to do this in broad daylight, he and Tewk, and he didn’t think about what came next, just getting themselves and their business through that gate.

He’d never been near this place, not even before the duchess died. The gates loomed up, tall, with the figures of two lions on painted leather, red and brown. The guards looked at them in complete boredom. They were supposed to be here. They were a little late. The guards opened the gates for them, and they walked through, under the second gate, which could be slammed down in a hurry.

“Signal tower’s to the right,” Tewk muttered, which shook Willem’s concentration, scarily so.

“Shhsh,” Willem said fiercely, and Tewk shut up.

But saying that about the signal tower had made him think about the signal, and the army, and—

He had to stop it. Uncle Tewk. They had stone chips to compare. Had to fix the tower, was what. Broken stone. They could chisel it out and slip a new one in, cut to perfection.

“Broken stone,” he said. “That’s why we’re here.”

“I wondered,” Tewk said.

It got them across the cobbled inner courtyard and over toward the tower, at least. Steps went up the side of the wall at that point.

But—

“You!” someone yelled.

I can’t, Willem thought, turning on his heel. It was one of the black-caps, with a sword out, with an angry look on his face. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t…

Steel whispered beside him. Tewk had a dagger out. A dagger , for the gods’ sake—it wasn’t enough.

Was a big sword. Tewk…

Tewk was a black-cap officer.

The man stopped dead and looked confused. And saluted.

Tewk didn’t move.

“Sorry, sir,” the man said. “Sorry.”

“Good you are,” Tewk said. “Get up there and lay a fire. Big one.” This with a nod to the looming tower. “Put a squad on it.”

“Yes, sir.”

The man sheathed his sword and went running.

Tewk wasn’t stupid. Willem was sure of that, now. He stood there shaking in the knees, and Tewk stood there solid as the stone tower itself.

“Pretty good,” Tewk said. “Pretty damned good. You don’t even write ’em down. Never saw that before.”

“Who was I?” Willem remembered including himself in the disguise, and now it was coming unraveled.

“An old man. Pretty scary old man at that.”

“That’s good.” He’d broken out in sweat. They had to get out of here. There were gates and walls between them and freedom, and Master had said he had to bring the Alley with him, but he didn’t see the Alley anymore. Here was the palace grounds, a huge stone courtyard, towering stone walls, slit windows, and massive doors. They were in this place, and there was something dark inside, and there was no leaving until they’d done something he didn’t want to think about—

Which was bad, because he had to think about it and get them in deeper before he could get them out again.

Who’d get to the duke? Who’d be safe going through those doors?

Soldiers.

Maybe.

They’re all mercs. Nobody wants the black-caps traipsing through, not even Wiggy.

Servants. He saw two men in livery crossing the yard. Which he didn’t see well enough. He needed to see it to cast it.

“Come on,” he said to Tewk, suddenly in a fever to get through this, get Tewk where he needed to go—not to think beyond that. Not to think about that dark thing. He knew what that was. He didn’t want to know. He didn’t think on it. He thought just about those two servants, and the closer he got, the better he knew what he had to cast. Only fancier. Fancy clothes gave orders. Plain clothes took them.

The two servants were headed in the door. Merc guards there opened it and let them through.

Let them through, too, Willem thought. Beyond was dark, dark. He didn’t know if Tewk could see it, but he felt it crawling through the hallways, as if all the fortress was one great beast.

The door boomed shut. There was spotty lighting, a couple of lamps. The dark was real. It was around them.

Stone steps ahead of them led up. It hadn’t been a main door. Stone steps at the right led down and a smell of cooking wafted up. Meat roasting. Bread baking. That was the kitchens.

Where did dukes live, anyway?

This time it was Tewk who said, “Come on. This way.”

He climbed, keeping up with Tewk. They were two fancy-dressed servants on a mission.

They were two fancy-dressed servants. Tewk was the senior. It was all right. Everything was all right.

They reached an upstairs hall, and it was amazing. Tapestries. Oil lamps. Slit windows that let in white daylight. A carpet on the wooden floor, and then, around a left-hand corner, a bigger room and a stone floor past open doors, and huge hangings and a number of people standing around a man at a little table, who was writing.

But it wasn’t the man who was writing that was best-dressed. It was the dark-haired, glowering man in the middle of the bystanders. That man was dressed in brocade and velvet and chain-mail and he wore a sword low-slung at his hip. He was as big as Tewk, and his glance swept toward them like the look of the biggest, meanest dog in town.