The Hammer and the Blade

  "I'm not interested," Nix said. "Egil?"

  "No."

  "And there you go," Nix said.

  "But–"

  "See, we don't hire out," Nix said. "Not our approach, powerful patron or no."

  "But–"

  Egil stepped forward and put his hands on the table, nearly toppling it, staring Beard in the face. "We. Don't. Hire. Out."

  To his credit, Beard looked neither frightened nor especially put out by Egil's tone and proximity. Most men would have been.

  Military, Nix figured. Had to be. Or damned experienced watch.

  "Offer our regrets to your employer," Nix said. "Meanwhile, enjoy the ale and the rest of your evening. Here, if you have half a mind. Elsewhere, if you have a whole."

  Beard shook his head. "You're making a mistake here."

  "Doubtful," Nix said.

  With that, he and Egil turned and started to walk off.

  "Final word, then?" Beard called after them. "You're certain?"

  Nix did not like the implication dangling in the sentence. He turned around, his eyes hard.

  "No, these are my final words: don't get cute with me in my own place. Oh, and stop fakking staring holes into my back, yeah?"

  Two of the three younger men leaped to their feet, sending chairs toppling. They had hands on their sword hilts, but Beard halted them with a sharp word and a raised hand. Egil's hammers were already in his hands, a snarl on his lips.

  "Barky bunch of curs, ain't they?" Nix said.

  Egil grunted. "Need to be brought to heel, maybe."

  "Nix!" called Tesha from her station atop the stairs.

  Nix winced, and dared not turn to face her.

  "We were only asking," Beard said calmly. At his gesture, his two underlings retook their seats and removed hands from hilts. "We intended no offense."

  "A misunderstanding, then," Nix said, hopefully loud enough for Tesha to hear. "No harm done. As I said, enjoy your evening."

  "Elsewhere's probably best though," Egil added.

  As Nix and Egil walked back to the bar, Tesha descended the stairway to meet them. She smiled at a patron ascending the stairs with one of her girls, but the smile disappeared the moment the patron was out of eyeshot. Nix tried not to ogle her figure as she moved toward them.

  "You can muster a fake smile as well as me," Nix said to her.

  "Twice in one night you threaten–"

  "Leave it be, woman, "Egil said. "They're watch or kith to watch. We only had words."

  "Heated words," she said.

  "Words, heated or no, shed no blood."

  Nix cut off whatever she intended to say. "Did Kiir and Lis tell you our thinking? About this place?"

  For the first time, Tesha's severe expression softened. "They did, but… did you mean it? I thought you were having a jest at their expense."

  Nix shook his head. "We're earnest. Free room and board for you. As for your workers, half of what they've been paying for rent and board. Profits come to us, less ten percent as your earnings. No negotiations. That's the offer. Done?"

  Her expression vacillated between surprise, hope, and skepticism. "This is business, Nix. Nothing else. You're clear on that?"

  "You cut me deeply, milady. If ever I have to buy an entire tavern to procure sex, even from one as lovely as you, Egil has standing instructions to kill me."

  Egil chuckled. So did Tesha, and Nix thought the sound musical.

  "What about Gadd?" she asked, and looked over her shoulder at the towering tapkeep. He tended his wares, as always, working his sorcery behind the bar. Morra flew by, holding her usual platter of ales.

  "He already eats and drinks free," Nix said. "His pay is your concern, but keep it reasonable. Morra's too. If you accept the offer."

  She put a hand on her hip, looked around the common room.

  "See how she considers?" Egil said. "A wise woman. If we'd done that, we'd never have bought the place."

  "Unhelpful, priest," Nix said out of the side of his mouth. "What do you say, Tesha?"

  She nodded to herself and stuck out a hand. "Done and done."

  Nix shook it, feeling a charge at her touch. Egil shook her hand perfunctorily.

  "We're going to drink now," Egil said. "It's your show, Tesha."

  "And send Kiir down, if you would," Nix said.

  "Kiir?" Tesha asked, and her lips pursed. "Oh… Fine."

  As she walked away, Nix elbowed Egil. "You see how she hesitated there? She likes me."

  "So you say," Egil said. "And now to the Altar of Gadd."

  "For libations. Aye."

  Soon thereafter the four watchmen settled their bill and left without a backward glance.

  "Not sorry to see those slubbers vacate," Nix said.

  "Aye. Doubtful they return."

  The crowd thinned as the night got on and the water clock of Ool soon announced the small hours. Nix nursed an ale at the bar, trying to stifle yawns. Despite turning management of the place over to Tesha, he had the uncomfortable feeling that he'd bound himself to a piece of property, and that it had shrunk his world rather than expanded it.

  He stuck his nose under his shirt and winced at the reek. He smelled of sweat, sour beer, and Gadd's pipesmoke. Basically, he smelled like the Slick Tunnel.

  To Gadd, he said, "I had no idea owning a business would be so damned boring."

  "One day of respectability and that about serves," Egil said.

  Gadd made a non-committal grunt. His tattooed hands and arms worried at the tankards and cups. He took out a pouch of something – hops, Nix thought, or maybe some kind of snuff – crushed them in his hands, inhaled deeply.

  "You don't understand anything we say, do you?" Nix said.

  Gadd looked up, a dust of the snuff across his broad nose. "Drink?"

  Nix smiled. "No. Still working on this one. Keep doing what you do, man."

  To occupy the time, Nix examined the ivory wand he'd found in the tomb of Abn Thahl. He studied the tiny carvings on its shaft, his mind drifting back to his time in the Conclave as he tried to make sense of the characters.

  The scent of perfume presaged Kiir's arrival beside him.

  "You have scant idea how pleased I am to see you," he said with a smile.

  She smiled shyly, sat, and nodded at the wand. "What's that?"

  "'Ware my stink," Nix said. "And this? This is nothing, just one of my gewgaws, as Egil would say. I took it from the tomb of an Afirion wizard-king after defeating the devil that guarded it."

  He spoke casually, but his words summoned the response he'd hoped for. Her eyes widened with wonder and she made a circle of her ring finger and thumb, a protective gesture, the symbol of Orella. She leaned in close to him, and he felt the warmth of her through his clothes. Her hair smelled of vanilla and the scent made him more lightheaded than Gadd's smoke.

  "A real devil of Hell?" she asked.

  "Indeed," Nix said, warming to the tale. He gestured with his hands as he spoke. "He stood twice as tall as Egil, coated in scales as large as my hand and as hard as steel. He had fanged rictuses at the ends of his arms. A terrible foe. Terrible."

  "Gods preserve! How did you escape it?"

  Beside Nix, Egil harrumphed. "Escape it? We slew it."

  Her hand went to her heart-shaped lips. "Slew it? How?"

  Nix sipped from his tankard. "Sharp steel and sharp wits, same as always."

  She touched his forearm, just a brush of her fingers. "Your life sounds so interesting. It must be exciting to travel around Ellerth as you do."

  "It is. We–"

  Suspicion dawned. He turned on his stool, studied her face, her smile, the look of wonder. He pulled back.

  "Wait. Are you Jonning me?"

  Her smile widened, her brown eyes bright.

  "You are!" he said. "Playing me like a Jon. Got me talking about myself while you act the innocent. I see what you're doing."

  She batted her eyelashes, and damned if she didn't almost have him again.
br />   "None of that now," he said, and she gave a genuine laugh and laid her hand on his arm. The feel of her skin on his felt warm, comforting.

  "Don't take it ill," she said. "You seemed to be having fun. Besides, it's habit and hard to break. Men love to jabber on to a pretty girl."

  Nix thought of the coinpurses he'd lifted earlier, both done out of habit. "Habit, I understand. And you are pretty. But now I feel a bit of an arse."

  "Don't. And if you're not filling my ears with shite, I am interested in hearing about the wand. Is that a real pearl?"

  Nix nodded. "A shaft of ivory capped with a pearl."

  She leaned in close. "What does it do?"

  "I don't know yet. But as I always say, the fun's in finding out."

  "You don't know yet?" The surprise in her expression made her look even prettier. "Aren't you afraid to carry it around? What if it… I don't know, it went off and filled your trousers with lightning?"

  Nix grinned. "Avoiding the obvious response to a pretty girl's mention of lightning in my trousers, I'll say instead that while I don't know exactly what it does, I have a rough idea."

  "And?"

  Egil looked over from his somber ruminations. "Yes, and?"

  Nix leaned forward, elbows on the bar, holding the wand across his palms. "The wizard-kings of Afirion were known to practice the art of transmutation, changing things into other things, or modifying existing things to make them better. The ivory and pearl construction is consistent with a transmutational device. The substance used to craft the wand suggests a minor transmutation."

  "Continue," Kiir said.

  Nix's eyebrows rose. "You understood all that?"

  "I'm a prostitute, Nix, not a dolt. I know some things."

  "Er… right. Well enough, then. So, now we examine the carvings that adorn the wand for some indication of function."

  He turned it in the meager light, to show the many grooves and whorls that lined it. Some looked like serpents, some like abstract shapes, others like script.

  "And?" Kiir said.

  "And this," Nix said, pointing to a tiny image carved into the wand. "It appears right under the pearl, and also on the opposite end. It's the operating glyph."

  Kiir squinted at the image. "What is it?"

  "It's a bull."

  She leaned forward and eyed the wand. "That's a bull?"

  "Of course it's a bull." Nix eyed it more closely. "Well, I'm pretty certain it's a bull. An artist's interpretation of a bull. Maybe. What else could it be?"

  "A dog." Kiir said. "A rat. A cat."

  Egil guffawed.

  "Pfft. No, it's a bull. I'm certain."

  She leaned back. "So if it's a bull, what does that mean?"

  "Not certain of that either."

  "That's much uncertainty for one wand," she said.

  "Well, what do think of when you think of a bull?" Nix asked her.

  "Horns."

  "No," Nix said. "Size, right? Strength, too. Given that, I think the wand will make its target bigger and stronger, at least for a time."

  "Hmm," Kiir said. "If true, that'd be useful."

  "Indeed," Nix said.

  "If you're right," she added.

  "You are possessed of little faith."

  "I'm not the priest," she said.

  Another guffaw from Egil. He toasted her with his ale.

  "How do you make it work?" she asked.

  "A word in the Language of Creation awakens the magic. That's true of all enspelled items, including and especially wands. Then… you just aim."

  "You know the Mages' Tongue?" she asked, unfeigned surprise in her tone.

  "I'm a tomb robber," he said with a wink. "Not a dolt. And, as it happens, my tongue knows many, many things."

  She laughed, her lips parting to show perfect teeth. "You're awful."

  Egil toasted her again. "The priest agrees entirely."

  "I am awful," Nix acknowledged with a nod. He drained his tankard. "I really am. As it happens, I spent most of a year at the Conclave. That's where I learned the bits I know."

  She looked even more surprised than when he'd mentioned the Mages' Tongue. "I thought studies there lasted several years."

  "He dropped out," Egil said.

  "No," Nix said irritably. "I was expelled. That's a much more honorable method to part ways with that place and its so-called instructors."

  "Agreed," Egil said, and harrumphed. "Wizards."

  "Third best event of my life, that expulsion," Nix said, thinking back on his younger days at the Conclave.

  "So, in only a year you learned the Mages' Tongue?"

  "Bits of it," Nix said, unwilling to admit that he knew some words but not their meanings. "Enough to do a few things. I wouldn't want to know much more. It's the gods' tongue, used to create Ellerth and the vault of stars. Speaking it too much is said to drive a man mad. Words not meant to be heard by mortals and so forth."

  "There's truth in that," Egil said. "From what we've seen."

  Now it was Nix's turn to toast his friend. He and Egil had crossed many sorcerers over the years and not one seemed to think with sense.

  "They say magic's in the blood, not the tongue," Kiir said. "So I guess you're born of a sorcerer, Nix Fall."

  "Ha!" Nix said. "Not likely in this blood."

  Nix was born of a prostitute and a Jon and had no idea of his lineage.

  "So then," Kiir said, "how'd you get into and out of a wizard-king's tomb with your lives?"

  Gadd put an ale before her and she smiled her thanks at the tall easterner.

  Nix just shook his head. "Tricks of the trade, love. Some secrets we must keep to ourselves. Suffice to say it was a close thing."

  Egil said, "It was. But we rob tombs better than we run taverns, so here we sit."

  "Here we sit," Nix said, toasting his friend a second time.

  "I'm glad of it," Kiir said.

  "And I," Nix said.

  Tesha spoiled the moment by calling down from the stairs. "Kiir!"

  "Work calls," Kiir said, standing.

  Tesha stood at the top of the stairs, a young man beside her. The man eyed Kiir hopefully and Nix liked it not at all. The man shifted on his feet in his eagerness, his smile filling his whole face. He couldn't have been more than twenty winters, just some bird-witted hob with a few terns rattling around in his pocket and a prick hard for a pretty girl.

  Nix said, "You know, you don't have to–"

  She put a small hand to his lips. "Don't do that, Nix. This is my life. I chose it. Let's not pretend this is more than it is."

  He stared into her eyes, nodded. "If it is, though?"

  She smiled, patted his arm.

  "I must remember never to underestimate you," he said.

  "Men always underestimate women, so you're ahead on that score."

  He touched her wrist, unwilling to let her go. "Are all the women who work here as sharp as you and Tesha?"

  "Every one," she said. She winked and walked away, letting her fingertips drag across Nix's forearm.

  After she'd left, Nix looked to Egil. "There's no one naïve left in this town."

  Egil nodded, staring into his ale cup. "Still in love?"

  Nix watched Kiir walk up the staircase, the sway of her hips, the way the bodice of her dress gripped her curves. "Pits, maybe more than ever."

  Egil took a slug of Gadd's ale. "I don't blame you."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Baras and a dozen of his men lingered near the mouth of an alley across Shoddy Way. Drums beat in the Low Bazaar behind them, laughter. The air carried the smell of sizzling meat and exotic tobacco. The few street torches lighting the street glowed feebly in the rain-misted night air.

  "What now?" Derg, one of his men, asked Baras. Both of them stared at the doors of the Slick Tunnel.

  "We wait," Baras said. "If they come out, we take them on the street."

  "And if they don't?"

  "We go in when it clears out. Get some men around the b
ack and make sure they don't sneak out that way."