Lilith Saintcrow: The Iron Wyrm Affair

The sorcerer sat in the exact centre of the Circle, its blue lines shifting over stone flagstones. He was shockingly dirty, as if he had rubbed filth into his own garments – the remains of an opera suit, draggled with dirt and torn in interesting places. His face was streaked with grime, and it was difficult to ascertain his features for a moment. They smeared like ink on wet paper, but perhaps it was only her vision blurring with fatigue.

Mikal’s arm tightened. She knew what he was thinking – Where are his Shields?

She had seen no profit in informing him that the Shields had been found disembowelled. Which was, if one thought about it, the only way to cause enough damage to keep a Shield truly incapable of combat for long enough to kill him.

“Good evening, Llewellyn.” I sound quite calm. Very well, that .

For he needed precious little of an opening to rob her of her composure.

His head lifted, strings of decaying blond hair twining with a life of their own, mixing with a grey Gwynnfud would have been infuriated with. With no charm to keep the colour its usual parchment pale, and none of the enhancements he favoured, he looked much less prepossessing than usual.

His long fingers spasmed, twisting together, and a glimmer of charm appeared on them. She tensed, and so did the Circle, its blue lines cavorting in intricate knots. It ran over the floor in wet streaks, and something about it was not as it should be, either.

“Emma.” The word echoed through shifting veils of sorcerous interference. He sounded sane, at least. Terribly, calmly sane. Which was perhaps the worst that could befall them.

For while Emma Bannon was certain she could handle a sorcerer gripped in madness, a sane and mocking Llewellyn was another matter entirely.

Her grip on Mikal’s arm loosened. If there was an event here, he had to be free to fight. Her chin lifted as she examined the Circle’s work, storing away the odd peculiarities of personality visible in the strands. A sorcerer’s memory was trained just as ruthlessly as her ability; in some cases, even more. And this was work she had not seen before. “Rather bad accommodations, I’m afraid. Are you well?”

His laugh came from the bottom of a dark well. Veils of sorcery shifted, keeping a Prime’s force contained. His will, even broken or twisted, would fight any containment laid upon it; a Prime did not take a bridle well, if at all. Hence the hardening of the air, alive with ætheric force, blurring his outlines as if he sat behind a screen.

“I’m locked in a cell in Bedlam, Emma. Obviously I am not well .” His dark eyes glimmered through the strings of hair. “And I have not even a change of linen. Barbarians.”

Your household should have bribed someone to bring such things to you . Her wariness increased, if that were possible. “If you will waste my time, Lord Sellwyth, I shall go elsewhere.”

It was a gamble, of course. It could prick his pride, and he might well refuse to say anything now. It could also trigger whatever unpleasantness was waiting around the corner, making the charm and charter react oddly. She was passing familiar with most native-Britannium sorcerers’ work; sorcery always carried the stamp of its channel. But this was … odd.

And, as she had suspected, the thing Llewellyn feared most was the loss of his audience. “I would not want to waste your time, dear Bannon.” He made the words a sing-song, rolling his head on his shoulders. Strings of hair crawled against each other and the cloth of his coat with bloated little whispers as sorcery crackled. “Especially when you’ve brought a snake-charmer and a lapdog with you.”

Fortunately, Clare had enough presence of mind to hold his peace. Mikal almost twitched, restlessly, and Llewellyn’s smile widened. “How long will it be before he strangles you, just like he did Crawford? And you, Emma. Queen and Country, how boring . Wouldn’t you like some real power?”

How very unlike you to be so direct . Emma’s concentration narrowed. “Throckmorton, Llewellyn. Your charge. You undertook to guard him at Britannia’s request; he is dead, your Shields are dead, and you are … here. Whatever could have happened?” Precise, drily astonished, for all the world like a professor mocking a slightly dim student. Llewellyn hated that tone, especially when it was delivered by a woman.

His face contorted for a bare moment. The sorcerous interference intensified, streaks of shimmering painting the outside of a perfect, invisible globe as a Prime’s will reflexively sought to break its cage. “Mentath,” he whispered. “ That’s a mentath; some fool’s let you get your hands on one. Stupid —”

Get my hands on — But the physical structure of Bedlam tolled once, a giant bell shivering as a hammerstroke echoed through the lattices of probability, and something hit her from the side, driving her down.

It was a most interesting conversation, layers of inference and deduction ticking below the conscious surface of Clare’s faculties, and he wondered briefly just when the sorcerer trapped in the Circle had ceased to be Miss Bannon’s lover. Well, at least they had most certainly been intimate at one time, and sorcery’s children had far different standards than the common crowd, but still, quite interesting. And from the sound of it, Miss Bannon had broken the attachment, yet there was no lingering of regret in her.

Clare’s wonderings were interrupted by an odd scent. Brimstone, perhaps? And a faint low scraping, like a match swept across a strikeplate. The space inside the circle rippled, oddly, becoming no more than a painted screen for a bare moment.

He leapt, knocking Miss Bannon down. A moment of excruciating heat kissed the back of his coat. Then he was rolling, a confusion of shadows flickering as someone hurtled over him, deadly silent with flashing blades. Stink of wet, smoking wool, Miss Bannon struggling to her feet, the amber suddenly a glowing yellow star in the dimness as she snapped two words. Her hands flung themselves out, white birds, slim fingers fluttering. There was a crack, and a sudden showering smell of wet salt.

“Mikal?” Bannon, breathless in the sudden quiet.

“Here.” The single word was so grim Clare tensed.

“The mentath—”

“Well enough.” Clare finished shrugging out of his jacket. The wool was smoking, a dull, unpleasant fume. “Well. That was entertaining.”

“Quick reflexes.” The other man bent down, offering his hand. “For one of your kind.”

He means it as a compliment . “And your own reflexes?”

The sorceress murmered. Thin threads of smoke traced up from her dress. The yellow-eyed man glanced at her. “Not quick enough, apparently. No—” He caught Clare’s shoulder. “Do not approach her just now.”

The sorceress’s jaw worked, and for a moment Clare had the uneasy feeling of lightning about to strike – a raising of fine hairs on his arms and neck, his glands responding to some feral current.

He decided she was indeed not to be approached. “That must have been heard. We shall have guards here in a moment, and explanations to be made.”

For there was a large smoking hole in the wall, odd twisted writing scored around its edges. Bedlam had sorcerous protections, but this did not seem to be one of them responding to Miss Bannon. Of course, Clare admitted, he could not be certain. But Miss Bannon would have no doubt alerted him, would she not?

The Shield’s next words placed all doubt aside.

“A cunning trap, and well laid. We shall indeed be going.” Mikal’s lean face set itself, lines bracketing his mouth. “But my Prima has a temper, mentath. Wait just a moment.”