The Anvil of the World

No one slept particularly well that night. The Smith’s baby screamed for two hours instead of the usual one. Smith divided watches with the keymen, taking the first shift, so he was up late anyway, getting stiffer and more chilled before Keyman Bellows took his place. Just as Smith had got himself drunk enough to pretend his wounded leg belonged to somebody else so he could doze off, he found himself sitting up, his heart pounding. He turned his head, staring into the west beyond the ring of carts. The faintest of touches on his face, a trace of moisture in the air, a scent as powerful and distinct as the sea’s but certainly not the sea.

Across the fire from him, Mrs. Smith leaned up on one elbow in her bedroll.

“Wind’s shifted,” she muttered. “That’s the Greenlands. We’ll see it, tomorrow.”

Smith lay back, wondering what she meant, and then he remembered the dark mountain.



He had forgotten it next morning, in the haze of his hangover and the confusion of breaking camp. He took Keyman Crucible’s place on the key, crowding beside him as Crucible pedaled, and the effort of winding for the push-off alone was enough to make Smith’s biceps twinge. By the time they were three hours on their way he had mentally crossed key-man off the list of possible careers for himself.

Busy with all this, Smith did not glance up at the horizon until the noon meal was handed along the line, and then he saw it: a rise of forested land to the northwest, and above it a black jagged cone. It didn’t seem very big until his mind grappled with a calculation of the distance. Then his eyes wouldn’t accept how immense it must be.

He put it out of his mind and attempted to unwrap his lunch with one hand. It was a pocket roll stuffed with highly spiced meat. He chewed methodically, looking back along the line of cars, and wondered again what the purpose of the glider attack had been. Robbery seemed unlikely, at least of the cargo. The most valuable thing they were carrying was Lady Seven Butterflies’s holistic eggs, and the mental image of a corps of gliders attempting to fly, bearing between them perhaps a cargo net full of big violet eggs, was enough to make him grin involuntarily.

What if one of the passengers had something they wanted? The fact that the dead man had an assassin’s tattoo didn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t also a thief. One man may in his time take many professions, as Smith knew too well.

He looked forward at the cart where the Smiths rode. They were jewelers; were they carrying any of their wares?

He turned back to look at the cart that Parradan Smith and the Yendri shared. They rode in mutual silence. Parradan Smith watched the eastern horizon. Flowering Reed’s uneasy stare was fixed on the black mountain to the northwest. Smith ruled out the Yendri, who was carrying very little luggage and had no trunks at all. His race disdained personal possessions and produced nothing anyone would want, traded in nothing but medicinal herbs and the occasional freshwater pearl.

Parradan Smith, on the other hand, was couriering something. What? The instrument case he carried didn’t seem heavy enough to be loaded with gold, as Burnbright had speculated.

Which left Lord Ermenwyr. Drugs, money, jewelry: The Lordling undoubtedly had plenty that would interest a thief.

Smith cranked again on the key, scanned the sky. No wings, at least.

But the black mountain grew larger as the hours went by; and after the following day, when they came to the divide and took the northern track, it loomed directly ahead of them.



“Smith.”

He opened his eyes Wearily. It seemed to him he had only just closed them; but the east was getting light. He turned and looked at Mrs. Smith, who was crouching beside him.

“We’d a visitor in the night, Smith, or so it seems. Still with us. I’d appreciate your assistance in removing it.”

“What?” He sat up and stared, scratching his stubble.

She pointed with her smoking tube. He followed with his eyes and saw a mass of something on the ground in the center of camp, dimly lit by the breakfast cookfire.

“What the hell—?” Smith crawled out and stood with effort, peering at the thing. It didn’t invite close inspection, somehow, but he lurched nearer and had a good look. Then he threw up.

If you took a gray-striped cat, and gave it the general size and limb configuration of a man, and then flayed it alive and scattered its flayed fur in long strips all over the corpse— you’d have something approximating what Smith saw in the pale light of dawn. You’d need to find a cat with green ichor in its veins, too, and remarkably big claws and teeth.

It was a demon, one of the original inhabitants of the world. Or so they themselves said, claiming to have been born of the primeval confusion at the beginning of time; for all Smith had ever been able to learn, it might be the truth. Certainly they had wild powers, and were thought to be able to take whatever solid forms they chose. This had both advantages and disadvantages. They might experience mortal pleasures, might even beget children. They might also die.

Smith reeled back, wiping his mouth. The thing’s eyes were like beryls, still fixed in a glare of rage, but it was definitely dead.

“Oh, this is bad,” he groaned.

“Could be worse,” said Mrs. Smith, putting on the teakettle. “Could be you lying there with your liver torn out.”

“Is its liver torn out?” Smith averted his eyes.

“Liver and heart, from the look of it. Doesn’t seem to have got any of us, though. I didn’t hear a thing, did you?” said Mrs. Smith quietly. Smith shook his head.

“But what is it? Is that a demon?”

“Well, there aren’t any tribes of cat-headed men listed in the regional guidebooks,” Mrs. Smith replied. “The principal thing with which we ought to concern ourselves just now is getting the bloody body out of sight before the guests see it, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Right,” said Smith, and limped away to the carts to get rope.

He made a halter, and together they dragged the body away from the camp, out onto the plain. There wasn’t much there to hide it. They returned, and Smith found a shovel, and was going back to dig a grave when he saw the body convulse where it lay. He halted, ready to run for his life, game leg notwithstanding. The body flared green, bursting into unclean flame. It became too bright to bear looking at, throwing out a shower of green sparks, then something brilliant rose screaming from the fire and shot upward, streaking west as though it were a comet seeking to hide itself in the last rags and shadows of the night.

The flames died away and left nothing but black ashes blowing across the plain in the dawn wind.

“That was definitely a demon,” Mrs. Smith informed him when he returned, leaning on his shovel. “Going off like a Duke’s Day squib that way. They do that, you see.” She handed him a tin cup of tea.

“But what was it doing here?” Smith accepted the cup and warmed his hands.

“I’m damned if I know. One doesn’t usually see them this far out on the plain,” said Mrs. Smith, spooning flatcake batter onto a griddle. “One can assume it came here to rend and ravage some or all of our company. One can only wonder at why it didn’t succeed.”

“Or who killed it,” Smith added dazedly. “Or how.”

“Indeed.”

“Well well well, what a lovely almost-morning,” said Lord Ermenwyr, emerging from his pavilion and pacing rapidly toward them. He looked slightly paler than usual and was puffing out enough smoke to obscure his features. “Really ought to rise at this hour more often. What’s for breakfast?”

“Rice-and-almond-flour flatcakes with rose-apricot syrup,” Mrs. Smith informed him.

“Really,” he said, staring around at the circle of tents. “How delightful. I, er, don’t suppose you’re serving any meat as well?”

“I could fry up sausages, my lord,” said Mrs. Smith.

“Sausages?… Yes, I’d like that. Lots of them? Blood rare?”

“Sausages only come one way, my lord.”

“Oh. They do? But what about blood sausage?”

“Even blood sausages come well-done,” Mrs. Smith explained. “Not much juice in a sausage.”

“Oh.” For a moment Lord Ermenwyr looked for all the world as though he were going to cry. “Well—have you got any blood sausage anyway?”

“I’ve got some imported duck blood sausage,” said Mrs. Smith.

“Duck blood?” Lord Ermenwyr seemed horrified. “All right, then—I’ll have all the duck blood sausage you’ve got. And one of those flatcakes with lots and lots of syrup, please. And tea.”

Mrs. Smith gave him a sidelong look, but murmured, “Right away, my lord.”

“You didn’t notice anything unusual in the night, did you, my lord?” asked Smith, who had been watching him as he sipped his tea. Lord Ermenwyr turned sharply.

“Who? Me? What? No! Slept like a baby,” he cried. “Why? Did something unusual happen?”

“There was a bit of unpleasantness,” said Smith. “Something came lurking around.”

“Horrors, what an idea! I suppose there’s no way of increasing our speed so we’ll be off this plain any quicker?”

“Not with one of our keymen down, I’m afraid,” Smith replied.

“We’ll just have to be on our guard, then, won’t we?” said Lord Ermenwyr.

“You know, my lord,” said Mrs. Smith as she laid out sausages on the griddle, “you needn’t stand and wait for your breakfast. You can send out your nurse to fetch it for you when it’s ready.”

“Oh, I feel like getting my own breakfast this morning, thank you.” Lord Ermenwyr flinched and bared his teeth as the Smiths’ baby began the morning lamentation.

“I see,” said Mrs. Smith. Smith looked at her.

He watched as, one by one, the keymen and the guests emerged from their tents alive and whole. Parradan Smith sniffed the air suspiciously, then shrugged and went off to wash himself. Burnbright crawled out of her bedroll, yawned, and came over to the kitchen pavilion, where she attempted to drink rose-apricot syrup from the bottle until Mrs. Smith hit her across the knuckles with a wooden spoon. The Smith children straggled forth and went straight to the mess of green slime and strips of fur where the demon’s body had been and proceeded to poke their little fingers in it.

Ronrishim Flowering Reed stepped from his tent, saw the mess, and looked disgusted. He picked his way across the circle to the kitchen pavilion.

“Is it possible to get a cup of clean water?” he inquired. “And have you any rose extract?”

“Burnbright, fetch the nice man his water,” said Mrs. Smith. “Haven’t any rose extract, sir, but we do have rose-apricot syrup.” Burnbright held it up helpfully.

Flowering Reed’s lip curled.

“No, thank you,” he said. “Plain rose extract was all I required. We are a people of simple tastes. We do not find it necessary to cloy our appetites with adulterated and excessive sensation.”

“But it’s so much fun,” Lord Ermenwyr told him. Flowering Reed looked at him with loathing, took his cup of water, and stalked away in silence.

Lord Ermenwyr took his breakfast order, when it was ready, straight off to his palanquin and crawled inside with it. He did not emerge thereafter until it was time to break camp, when he came out himself and took down his pavilion.

“Is Madam Balnshik all right?” Smith inquired, coming to lend a hand, for the lordling was wheezing in an alarming manner.

“Just fine,” Lord Ermenwyr assured him, his eyes bulging. “Be a good fellow and hold the other end of this, will you? Thanks ever so. Nursie’s just got a, er, headache. The change in air pressure as we approach the highlands, no doubt. She’ll be right as rain, later. You’ll see.”

In fact she did not emerge until they made camp that evening, though when she did she looked serene and gorgeous as ever. Mrs. Smith watched her as she dined heartily on that night’s entree, which was baked boar ham with brandied lemon-and-raisin sauce. Lord Ermenwyr, by contrast, took but a cup of consomme in his pavilion.



“That’s two murder attempts,” said Mrs. Smith, as the fire was going down to embers and all the guests had retired.

“You don’t think it’s been robbery either, then,” said Smith. She exhaled a plume of smoke and shook her head.

“Not when a demon’s sent,” she said. “And that was a sending, depend upon it.”

“I didn’t think there were any sorcerers in Troon,” said Smith.

“What makes you think the sending came out of Troon?” Mrs. Smith inquired, looking dubious. He told her about Burnbright’s recognizing the dead glider. She just nodded.

“You don’t think the two attacks are unrelated, do you?” asked Smith. “Do you think the demon might have been sent by—” He gestured out into the darkness, toward the black mountain. Mrs. Smith was silent a moment.

“Not generally his style,” she said at last. “But I suppose anything’s possible. That would certainly complicate matters.”

“I like trouble to be simple,” said Smith. “Let’s say it’s somebody in Troon. It’s my guess they’re either after Parradan Smith or the little lord. Couldn’t get them in town without it being an obvious murder, so they waited until we were far enough out on the plain that we couldn’t send for help. Eh?”

“Seems reasonable.”

“But the first attack didn’t come off, thanks to there being a lot more people able to fight back here than they bargained for,” Smith theorized. “Now we’re getting farther out of range and they’re getting desperate, so they hired somebody to send a demon. That costs a lot. I’m betting they’ve run out of resources. I’m betting we’ll be left in peace from here on.”



And for the next two days it seemed as though he might be right, though the journey was not without incident. The Smith children began to grow gray fur on their hands, and nothing—not shaving, not plucking, not depilatory cream—could remove it. Moreover it began to spread, to their parents’ consternation, and by nightfall of the second day they sat like a trio of miserable kittens while their mother had hysterics and pleaded with Smith to do something about it.

Such commotion she made that Lord Ermenwyr ventured from his bed, glaring and demanding silence; though when he saw the children he howled with immoderate laughter, and Balnshik had to come drag him back inside, scolding him severely. She came out later and offered a salve that looked like terra-cotta clay, which proved effective in removing the fur, though the children wept and whined that it stung.

Still, by the next morning the fur had not grown back.



The Greenlands rose before them, now, in range upon range of wooded hills. Beyond towered the black mountain, so vast it seemed like another world, perhaps one orbiting dangerously close. Its separate topography, its dark forests and valleys, its cliffs brightened here and there by the fall of glittering rivers and rainbowed mists, became more distinct with every hour and seemed less real.

Though the road skirted the hills in most places, the ground did climb, and the keymen grunted with effort as they pedaled. Smith worked so hard, his wound opened again and Keyman Crucible had to help him, winding with his good arm. The air was moist, smelling of green things, and when they made camp their first evening in a tree-circled glade there was not the least taste of the dust of Troon left in anyone’s mouth.



Two days into the Greenlands, they were attacked again.

They had scaled a hill with sweating effort, and cresting saw a long straight slope before them, stretching down to a gentle shaded run through oaks beginning to go golden and red. Burnbright whooped with relief, and sprinted down the road before the caravan as it came rattling after. The Smith children raised a shrill cheer as the carts picked up speed, and bright leaves whirled in the breeze as they came down.

But near the bottom of the incline, there were suddenly a great many leaves, and acorns too, and then there was an entire tree across the road. A very large and fairly ugly man stepped out and stood before them, grinning.

He was doing it for effect, of course. He had the sashes, the golden earring, the daggers that went with a bandit, and he had, moreover, the tusks and thundercloud skin color that went with a demon hybrid. There was no need for him to shout, “Halt! This is an armed robbery!” and with his tusks he might have found it a little difficult to enunciate anyway. His job was to terrify and demoralize the caravan, and he was well suited for it.

However, it is not a good idea to terrify a little girl whose legs can run fifty miles in a day without resting. Burnbright screamed but, unable to stop given her momentum, did what had been drummed into her at the Mount Flame Mother House for Runners: She leaped into the air and came on heels first, straight into the bandit’s face. He went over with a crash, and she went with him, landing on her feet. She proceeded to dance frenziedly on his head, as behind her the carts derailed and before her other bandits came howling from the forest.

Nor is it a good idea to lose the element of surprise. Smith and the others had enough warning, in the time they were hurtling toward the tree, to prepare themselves, and when the moment of impact came they were poised to leap clear. Smith landed hard on his hip but got off a pair of bolts into the bandit who was rushing him, which bought him enough time to scramble to his feet and draw his machete. The key-men had produced dented-looking bucklers and machetes from nowhere, and charged in formation, a pot-headed wall of slightly rusty steel.

One of the bolts had got Smith’s opponent in the throat, so he was able to cut him down in a moment. As he swung to meet another shrieking assailant he had a glimpse of the tumbled caravan. The Smiths were desperately attempting to get their children into the shelter of an overturned cart, and a bandit who was advancing on them found his head abruptly caved in by a heavy skillet wielded by Mrs. Smith. Giant violet eggs were rolling everywhere, spilling free of their cargo netting, and Balnshik was kicking them aside as she leaped forward, a stiletto blade in either hand. She slashed at a bandit who backed rapidly from her, though whether he was intimidated more by the wicked little knives or the gleam of her white teeth, bared in a snarl of bloodthirsty joy, it would have been difficult to say.

Lord Ermenwyr, astonishingly, was up and on his feet, and had just taken off an assailant’s head with a saber. Parradan Smith had emptied his pistolbows, mowing down at least five attackers, and was locked in a hand-to-hand struggle with the sixth. That was all Smith was able to see clearly before he became far too preoccupied with his own survival to look longer.

His opponent was not, as the tusked bandit had been, hideous. He was lithe, slender, beautiful; but for the ram’s horns that curved back from his temples and the fact that his skin was the color of lightning, he might have graced any boy prostitute’s couch in the most elegant of cities. This did not impress Smith, but the youth fought like a demon too, and that painfully impressed him.

Blade blocked blade—whipp, a dagger was in the youth’s free hand, and he’d laid open Smith’s coat just over his heart. Smith’s hand moved too fast to be seen and would have taken off the boy’s head, but he was suddenly, magically, four paces back from where he ought to be. He smiled into Smith’s eyes and lunged again, and Smith, jumping back, was unable to free his boot knife before they locked blades once more. The boy had all the advantage of inhuman speed and strength, and Smith began to get the cold certain feeling in his gut that he was going down this time.

All he had on the boy was weight, and he threw it into a forward push. He managed to shove the other one back far enough to grab his knife at last and they circled, the boy dancing, Smith limping. He knew vaguely that the bandits were getting the worst of the fight, but they might have been in another world. His world was that locked circle, tiny and growing smaller, and his opponent’s eyes had become the moon and the sun.

The demon-boy knew he was going to win, too, and in his glee threw a few little eccentric capers into his footwork, strutted heel to toe, swung his dagger point like a metronome to catch Smith’s gaze and fix it while he ran him through—

But he didn’t run him through, because his own gaze was caught and held by a figure advancing from Smith’s right.

“Hello, Eshbysse,” said Mrs. Smith.

The boy’s face went slack with astonishment. Into his eyes came uncertainty, and then dawning horror.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Smith. “Fenallise.”

He drew back. “Fenallise? But—you—”

“It’s been thirty years, Eshbysse,” she said.

“No!” he cried, backing farther away. “Not that long! You’re lying.” Averting his gaze from her, he dropped his weapons and put his hands to his face. It was still smooth, still perfect.

“Every day of thirty years,” she assured him.

“I won’t believe you!” Eshbysse sobbed. He turned to flee, wailing, mounting into the air and running along the treetops, and the red and golden leaves fluttered about his swift ankles as though they had already fallen. His surviving men, seeing the tide had turned, took to their heels along the ground with similar rapidity.

Smith dropped his weapons and sagged forward, bracing his hands on his thighs, gulping for breath.

“What the hell,” he said, “was that all about?”

“We were an item, once,” said Mrs. Smith, looking away into the sea of autumn leaves. “You wouldn’t think I was ever a little girl to be stolen out of a convent by a demon-lover, would you? But we did terrible things together, he and I.”

“What’d he run off for?” asked Smith.

She shook her head.

“He was always afraid of Time,” she said thoughtfully. “It doesn’t get their kind as quickly as it gets us, but it does do for them sooner or later. Seeing me reminded him. One day he won’t be pretty anymore; he can’t bear that, you see.”

Smith stared at her and saw in her face the girl she had been. She turned and looked at the aftermath of battle.

“Bloody hell,” she said. Parradan Smith was staggering toward them, death-pale, supported by Flowering Reed.

“He’s hurt,” Flowering Reed cried.



They made temporary camp by the side of the road and assessed the damage.

Parradan Smith was indeed hurt, had taken a stab wound in the chest, and though it was nowhere near his heart, he was in shock, seemed weakened on his left side. Flowering Reed advised that he shouldn’t be moved for the present, so they made him as comfortable as they could in one of the tents.

Burnbright was bruised and crying hysterically, but had taken no other harm. Smith’s ribs were scratched, and the keymen had taken assorted cuts, none serious. The Smiths and their children were unharmed. Balnshik was unharmed, as was Lord Ermenwyr. There were, however, nine dead bandits to be dragged into a pile and searched, and there was an oak tree to be cleared from the road, to say nothing of 144 giant eggs to be collected and a dozen carts to be righted and put back on track.

“So thanks a lot, Master of the Mountain,” Smith muttered, as he was having his ribs taped up. Mrs. Smith, who was tending to him, shook her head.

“Have you taken a good look at the bodies?” she asked. “Three of ‘em are our own people. The others look like half-breeds. Poor Eshbysse had got himself a band of threadbare mercenaries and thieves. When the old man attacks, you’ll know; his people are all demons, and a good deal more professional than these feckless creatures. We’d have had no chance at all against him.”

“That’s encouraging,” growled Smith.

“Would you believe it?” said Lord Ermenwyr brightly, approaching with an armful of violet eggs. “Not one of the damned things broke!”

Mrs. Smith looked scornful. “I suppose all that tripe about the perfect holistic packing shape had some sense in it, then.”

“Are they supposed to be a perfect holistic shape?” Lord Ermenwyr looked intrigued. He tossed his armful into the air and, before Smith had time to yell, began to juggle them adroitly.

“My lord, could I ask you to put those back in the cart?”

Lord Ermenwyr tossed the eggs, one after another as they came out of their spinning circle, into the cart. “Shall I volunteer to search the bodies? Might be a purse or two on them.”

“Do you think they were from the Master of the Mountain?” said Smith.

Lord Ermenwyr gave a short bark of a laugh. “Not likely! His men all wear mail and livery. Or so I’ve heard.”

“Why does everybody know more about this than me?” Smith wondered, as the young lord went off to loot corpses.

“Well, you’re not from around here, are you, dear?” Mrs. Smith tied off his bandage. “If you weren’t from Port Black-rock or wherever it is, you’d have heard these stories all your life.”

Smith was disinclined to tell her whether or not he was from Port Blackrock, so he looked up at Keyman Bellows, who saluted as he approached. “How are we doing?” he inquired.

“Carts are righted, Caravan Master, and no damage to the wheels or gears. Old Smith and New Smith are taking axes to the roadblock now. Parradan Smith’s asking for you.”

“Right,” Smith said, getting to his feet and pulling on his slashed coat. “I’ll go see what he wants. When they’re done with the tree, tell them to dig a grave pit.”

His first thought, when he parted the tent flap and peered inside, was that he was looking at a dead man. But Parradan Smith’s eyes swiveled and met his.

“Talk to you,” he said.

“He shouldn’t talk,” said Flowering Reed, who sat beside him. Parradan Smith bared his teeth at the Yendri.

“Get out,” he said.

“Easy!” Smith ducked his head and stepped in. “You’d better go; I won’t let him wear himself out,” he told Flowering Reed, who looked offended and left without a word.

When they were alone, Parradan Smith gestured awkwardly with one hand at the gang tattoo on his chest. “Know this?” he gasped.

“You’re a Bloodfire,” Smith replied.

He nodded. “Courier. Collected debt in Troon. He tried to get it back.”

“Who did?” Smith leaned closer. Parradan Smith gulped for breath.

“Lord Tinwick. Gambler. His gliders.” He watched Smith’s face closely to see if he understood.

“The gliders were trying to kill you and take back what you’d collected?”

Parradan Smith nodded. He made a groping gesture toward his instrument case. Smith pulled it close for him. He pressed a key into Smith’s hand.

“Open.”

Smith worked the complicated locks and opened it, and caught his breath. Nested in shaped packing was a jeweled cup of exquisite workmanship, clearly very old.

“Heirloom. All he had to pay with. My lord wants it bad. You deliver—” Parradan Smith looked up into Smith’s eyes. “And tell him. Pay well. Lord Kashban Beatbrass. Villa in Salesh. Find him.”

A shadow shifted across the outside of the tent and moved away. Parradan Smith followed it with his eyes and smiled bitterly.

“He stopped listening,” he said.

“Look, you aren’t wounded that badly,” said Smith, feeling he ought to say something encouraging. “I’m sure we can get you to Salesh.”

Parradan Smith looked back at him.

“Turn me,” he ordered.

“What?” said Smith, but he obeyed, lifting and half-turning the wounded man. He caught his breath; there was a red swelling on his back like an insect bite but immense, beginning to blister, and in its center a dark speck.

“See?” said Parradan Smith, breathing very hard. “Poisoned.”

Smith said something profane. He drew his knife and scraped gently, and the black thing came out of the wound. He turned Parradan Smith on his back again and held up the object on his knife blade, squinting at it. It looked like the tip of a thorn, perhaps a quarter of an inch long.

“This is like those darts we took out of the glider,” he said.

“In my back,” said Parradan Smith. Smith groaned.

“Somebody in the party shot you,” he said. “Maybe by accident?”

Parradan Smith looked impatient and drew a deep breath as though he was about to explain something too obvious to Smith; but he never drew another breath after that and lay staring at Smith with blank eyes.

Smith sighed. He closed and locked the case. Flowering Reed approached him as he came out of the tent, and he told him, “He’s dead.”

“He might have lived if you’d listened to me,” said the Yendri angrily.

“I don’t think so,” said Smith, and walked away to put the case in a safe place.



A while later he approached Lord Ermenwyr, who was puffing out rifts of purple weedsmoke as he watched the keymen digging the grave pit.

“We need to talk, my lord,” he said.

“My master needs to rest,” said Balnshik, appearing beside him as from thin air.

“I need to talk to him more than he needs to rest,” said Smith stubbornly. Lord Ermenwyr waved a placatory hand.

“Certainly we’ll talk, and Nursie can stand by with a long knife in case things take an unpleasant turn,” he said. “Though I think we’ve seen the last of this particular band of cutthroats.”

“Let’s hope so, my lord,” said Smith, drawing him aside. Balnshik followed closely, tossing her hair back in an insolent kind of way. Her shirt had been torn in the fight, giving him a peep at breasts like pale melons, and it was with difficulty that he drew his attention back to her young master. “You fought very well, if I may say so.”

“You may,” said Lord Ermenwyr smugly. “But then, I’ve had lots of experience fighting for my life. Usually against doctors. Today was a welcome change.”

“Your health seems to have improved.”

“I’m no longer rusticating in that damned dust bowl, am I?” Lord Ermenwyr blew a smoke ring. “Bandits or no, the Greenlands does offer fresh air.”

“What were you doing in Troon?” inquired Smith. Balnshik stretched extravagantly, causing one nipple to flash like a dark star through the rent in her shirt. Smith turned his face away and concentrated on Lord Ermenwyr, who replied, “Why, I was about my father’s business. Representing his interests, if you must know, with Old Troon Mills and the other barley barons. Doing a damned good job, too, before the Lung Rot set in.”

“Do you gamble, my lord?”

“Hell, no.” Lord Ermenwyr scowled. “A pastime for morons, unless you’ve got an undetectable way of cheating. I don’t need the money, and I certainly don’t need the thrill of suspense, thank you very much. I’ve spent too much of my life wondering if I’d live to see my next birthday.”

Smith nodded. “And the only reason you left Troon was for your health?”

“Yes.”

“You’d made no new enemies there?”

Lord Ermenwyr’s eyes glinted. “I didn’t say that,” he purred. “Though it wasn’t my fault, really. I made the most amazing discovery.”

“Master,” said Balnshik, in the gentlest voice imaginable, but it was still a warning.

“Did you know,” said Lord Ermenwyr, with barely suppressed glee, “that if you’re very attentive to wealthy widows, they’ll practically pay you to sleep with them? They’ll give you presents! They’ll take you nice places to eat! Good lord, I might have been a kitten on a string, and all I had to do was—”

“I’m sure the Caravan Master isn’t interested, my lord,” said Balnshik, putting an affectionate arm about his neck and locking it against his windpipe.

“How old is he?” Smith asked her.

“Sixteen.”

“Twenty-five!” said Lord Ermenwyr, pushing back her arm. “Really!”

“Sixteen,” Balnshik repeated.

“Seventeen,” Lord Ermenwyr insisted. “Anyway, the only problem is, the ladies get jealous, and they won’t share their toy. There was a Scene. A certain lady tried to do me an injury with her hairbrush. I only got out of it by pretending to have a seizure, and then I told her I was dying, which I am but not right then, and—”

“And his lord father thought it best my master have a change of air,” Balnshik finished for him.

Smith rubbed his chin, scratching the stubble.

“So… would any of these ladies have felt strongly enough to hire a band of mercenaries to ambush you out here?” he said, without much hope.

“Well, I don’t know—Lady Fristia was rather—”

“No,” said Balnshik. “And now, I hope you’ll excuse us? It’s time his lordship had his drugs.” She lifted Lord Ermenwyr bodily, threw him over her shoulder, and carried him off, protesting:

“It could have been Lady Fristia, you know! She was obsessed with me—”



They buried Parradan Smith in a separate grave and piled a cairn of stones to mark it, on Burnbright’s advice, she being the nearest expert on Mount Flame City gang customs. They felt badly leaving him there, in the shadow of the black mountain. Still, there is only so much one can do for the dead without joining them.



Two days more they rolled on, fearful at every blind turning, but the fire-colored forest was silent under a mild blue sky. No picturesque villains jumped out from behind the mossy boles nor arose from the green ferns.

On the third day, Crucible told Smith, “We’ll come to a Red House today. Might want their blacksmith to have a look at that rear axle.”

“Red House, right,” said Smith, nodding. “That would be one of the way station chain? I saw one on the map. Well, that’ll be a relief.”

Crucible laughed like a crow. “You haven’t tasted their beer,” he said.