The Anvil of the World

And after all nothing had changed. Next morning both Lord Ermenwyr and Balnshik had resumed their ordinary appearance and made no reference whatever to the previous night’s conversation. Breakfast was served, camp was broken, the carts got back on the road again as usual. It was so mundane that Smith, resuming his couch on the flour bags, wondered if he hadn’t had a bizarre nightmare.

That day they came down out of the Greenlands at last, onto the plain. The caravan seemed to skim like a bird, speeding along the flat miles. They began to spot other cities lifting towers above secure walls, other roads crossing the distance and even intersecting their road, and now and then they passed caravans bound for regions unknown or dull merchants’ carts rattling along. The Smith children waved and shrieked happily at them all. Mile after mile fell away, and every mile brought nearer the gray hills of Salesh-by-the-Sea, the only interruption of the expanding steel horizon.

They spent one last night at a way station, though it was so palatial it scarcely seemed to fit the name. There was a shop there selling sweets and fruit, biscuits and wine; there were all of three stone watering huts (no waiting!); there was even a booth with a scribe who would, for a price, copy out a map of your immediate destination, guaranteed to be accurate for any city precinct. In the dark the wind shifted and brought them the strong rank salt smell of the tides. Smith felt as though he had come home.



Salesh, like most cities on the sea, had only a half circle of city wall, a high curve of white flints at its back that gleamed in the sun like a shell mound, when the dense fogs now and then parted to let any sun through. There the resemblance to anything so formless as a mound stopped, however, for the wall was neatly laid with mile-castles along its top, patrolled by watchmen whose armor was enameled in a pattern like fish scales. Within the wall the city was laid out in a fan of long streets, each terminating on the seafront.

The city gate was standing wide when they arrived, and Burnbright trumpeted their arrival with glee, pausing only to flash the license and manifest at the city guard. As soon as they were waved through she leaped into the lead cart next to Pinion and flung both her fists toward the sky.

“We made it,” she shouted, dancing. “We’re safe! I’m great, I’m the fastest runner in the world, and Mount Flame City rules!”

“Oh, sit down and watch your mouth,” said Pinion, but he was grinning too. He steered them down the long hill in splendor, riding the brakes, and the iron wheels shot sparks like a fireworks display celebrating their arrival. Expertly he took them around the sharp turn at Capstan Street, and they rocketed into the vast echoing hall of the Salesh-by-the-Sea caravan depot.

It was crowded and very loud, for another caravan had arrived just before them. Porters were lined up along the arcades, displaying their muscles as they awaited employment. The runners had taken an entire arcade for themselves and sat or leaned there, gossiping together, a blaze of scarlet uniform in the shadows. Clerks worked their way along the line of carts with manifest checklists, recording the arrival of goods and overseeing their unloading. Smith slid hastily from the flour bags and turned to collide with the Smiths and their baby.

“Well, here we are at last,” he said.

“At last,” Mr. Smith agreed. “And I must say I—Children! Come back here right now! I must say I’ve never beheld such personal bravery in a caravan master. Both my sons have told me they want to be just like you when they grow up, isn’t that right, boys?”

“No,” said the smaller of the boys. “He gets hurt all the time.”

“That man is stealing our trunks!” screamed the little girl.

“No, no, that’s our porter! Meefa, stop kicking the nice man! I—will you excuse us? Thank you so much,” said Mr. Smith, and hastened away. Just beyond him, Mr. Amook was shouldering his one bag. He slipped off into the crowd and disappeared.

“Safe haven at last, eh?” said Lord Ermenwyr, emerging from his palanquin and yawning. “Good old Salesh-by-the-Sea. What memories of innocent childhood! Burying one’s brothers in the sand. Watching all the nude bathers. How I used to love toddling up to pat their bottoms! You can get away with it when you’re three,” he added ruefully.

“Master, the porters are here,” announced Balnshik, swaying up at the head of a line of massive fellows who followed her with stunned expressions.

“Right. You! Four of you on the palanquin poles, all the same height, please, and if you can get me to the spa without making me motion sick you’ll get a bonus. Mind those trunks! Now, Caravan Master,” Lord Ermenwyr said, turning back to Smith. “Here’s for your efforts in the line of duty.” He took Smith’s hand and set a purse in it, quite a heavy purse for its size. Then he leaned close and spoke in an undertone. “For your efforts beyond the call of duty, will you come be my guest at the spa tonight? Dinner, drinks, and general fun. Eh? Nursie would still like to thank you personally, you know.” He elbowed Smith meaningfully.

“Honor on your house, my lord,” said Smith. Lord Ermenwyr hooted in derision.

“Talk about impossibilities! I should tell you about the time—”

“Master, we don’t want to keep the gentlemen waiting,” said Balnshik. She caught him by his collar and the seat of his trousers and forcibly assisted him up into the palanquin, which had been hoisted onto the shoulders of four stolid porters. Having shoved him inside and closed the curtain on him, she turned to Smith with a dazzling smile. “Do come tonight, please.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Smith stammered.

“Until this evening, then,” she said, and, turning to the porters, she ordered them follow her in a voice that lashed like a whip, and strode from the caravan depot, breasts jutting arrogantly. They followed her, needless to say.

Smith stared after her until his attention was pulled away by a clerk approaching him.

“Caravan Master”—the clerk peered over his spectacles at the manifest—”Smith? What’s this I hear about damaged goods?”

“It’s only one unit of one consignment,” Smith explained. “The flour and the mineral pigments are fine.”

“Yes, they’re already claimed. But the shipment to Lady Katmile?”

“There was an accident,” said Smith, sweating slightly as he turned and rummaged in his pack for the broken egg. “Minor collision. Not our fault. Just this one, see? But all the others are intact!” He waved at the 143 violet eggs reposing under their cargo net.

“Eggs?” The clerk frowned. “Most irregular. Who on earth authorized packing containers like that?”

“The sender, if you must know,” said Mrs. Smith, bustling up to Smith’s rescue. “All her own design. We hadn’t a thing to do with it. Bloody nuisance the whole trip. She’s lucky it’s only the one!”

“We were attacked a lot, sir,” Smith told the clerk. The clerk’s eyes widened behind his spectacles, which magnified the expression freakishly.

“You’d better fill out an Assault, Damage and Loss form,” he said.

“He’s going to get off his feet and have a drink first,” stated Mrs. Smith, linking her arm through Smith’s. Behind her, the keymen and Burnbright assembled themselves to glare at the clerk. “Aren’t you, Caravan Master? Anybody wants to see us, we’ll be in the Stripped Gear over there.” She pointed to a dark doorway set invitingly at the back of an arcade.

“That’s right,” said Crucible. “This is a wounded man, you know.”

“And if he dies, there’ll be all kinds of trouble, because he’s the owner’s cousin,” said Burnbright, pushing forward assertively. “So there.”

“Come along, boys,” said Mrs. Smith, and, towing Smith after her, she made for the Stripped Gear, with Burnbright and the keymen flanking them. “You’ll like this.

Charming little watering hole for the trade. Doesn’t try to foist one off with plonk, and, moreover, rents rooms quite inexpensively.”

“And we get our own bloody palanquin,” said Burnbright, which made no sense at all to Smith until they got through the dark doorway and he saw the rows of booths built to resemble big palanquins, complete with curtains and thickly padded seats. Apart from that bit of theatrics, the Stripped Gear was just what a bar should be: cozy, dark but not too dark to spot an attacker, crowded but not too loud for conversation. Smith felt his spirits rising as the keymen vaulted into the booth one after another and pulled him in after them. Mrs. Smith and Burnbright followed.

“My treat,” he said.

“No, no; at least, not the first round,” admonished Mrs. Smith. “Pray, allow us. We’re really quite pleased with you, Caravan Master, aren’t we, boys?”

They keymen all chorused agreement.

“Coming on at the last minute like you did after poor old Smelterman took that bolt,” said Pinion.

“Considering it was your first time and all,” agreed one of the other Smiths.

“I had my doubts, but you held up,” said Crucible. “You’re no coward, I’ll say that for you.”

“And a good man in a fight, too,” said Bellows.

“I never saw anybody bleed the way you did and live,” offered Burnbright. At that moment the publican came up.

“Mrs. Smith! Charmed to see you again,” he said, bowing. She extended a regal hand, and he kissed it.

“Delighted to have returned, Mr. Socket. Six of your best Salesh Ambers for the gentlemen, a peach milk for the young lady, and I shall have a dry Storm Force Nine with a twist,” she said. “Later we’ll need to inquire regarding suitable accommodations for the night.”

He hurried away, and after a pleasantly short interval returned with their order. When he had departed, Burnbright held up her peach milk. “Here’s to our caravan master,” she yelled, hammering on the table with her little fist. “Death to our enemies!” They all clinked glasses and drank.

“I have dreamed of this moment,” said Mrs. Smith, lighting her smoking tube and filling the booth with amberleaf fumes at once. “I shall take in a show along the Glittering Mile.”

“I’m off to the Winking Tit,” said Crucible, and the other keymen nodded in emphatic unison.

“Are there any places like that for ladies?” Burnbright asked.

“Not at your age, you silly thing,” said Mrs. Smith. “What you’ll need to do is get yourself over to the local mother house to clock in your mileage. You should be very nearly certified by now. What will you do, Caravan Master?”

Smith had been thinking in bemusement about the Winking Tit, but roused himself, and said, “I’ve got something I have to deliver, so I guess I’ll do that first. Tonight I’m supposed to go see Lord Ermenwyr where he’s staying.”

“And Nurse Balnshik too?” Pinion dug him in the ribs.

“You’d better order up some oysters,” chortled Bellows.

“You know what you really ought to do first,” said Mrs. Smith, pointing at the disk Smith wore about his neck, “is go over to the baths in Anchor Street and redeem that thing the greenie doctor gave you. You’ll feel much better afterward, fit for the lists of love or whatever you get up to after dark.”

“That’s a good idea,” agreed Smith, thinking of hot water and clean towels. “I’ve still got Troon dust places I don’t want to think about.”

“It’s awfully hard to get it out of your ears,” said Burnbright seriously.

At this moment Smith glanced over and saw that the clerk had come into the bar with another person, and was staring about. He spotted Smith and the others and pointed, and the other person followed his gesture. Then she started toward Smith, and her attractive countenance was made less appealing by her expression of murderous rage.

“Uh—” said Smith.

“Caravan master! Can you sit and brazenly drink after such perfidy?” she hissed at him. Everyone in the booth drew back from her. She was clearly wealthy, with embroidered robes. Her hair was done up in an elaborate chignon held in place by jeweled pins. One expected to see her palanquin shopping or in a stage box at the theater, but certainly not leaning into a booth in the Stripped Gear, let alone with the veins in her neck standing out like that.

“Lady Katmile of Silver Anvil House?” guessed Smith. “Look, it was only one butterfly. Accidents happen and—”

“If it were only one!” she cried, and the clerk wrung his hands.

“Damage more extensive than reported,” he said. “Contents examined with certified witness present. Every egg opened contained broken merchandise. Estimate fully half shipment in unacceptable condition.”

“What d’you mean, damage?” shouted Mrs. Smith. “None of the damned things had so much as a crack in ‘em, except the one we squashed!”

“Outer casings intact,” admitted the clerk. “But inside—”

“What did you do, play handball with them?” demanded Lady Katmile. Smith closed his eyes, remembering Balnshik kicking violet eggs from her path as she ran, remembering Lord Ermenwyr juggling with them, remembering them bouncing down the high embankment. He said something profane.

Lady Katmile reared back like a snake about to strike.

“You wantonly destroy irreplaceable works of art, and you have the insolence to use that kind of language too?” she said. “Well. This matter goes to the Transport Authorities, Caravan Master, do you understand me? I’ll have your certification. I’ll have the certifications of your underlings. I’ll have your owner’s house and lands and movable chattel. No fiend of the desert has thirst great enough to drink dry the sea of your debt!”

She turned and swept out, drawing her furred cape about her. The clerk lingered long enough to shake his finger at them menacingly. He muttered, “Complaint will be filed immediately,” and scurried after Lady Katmile.

Stunned silence at the table for a long moment.

“Did she mean she was going to get us sacked too?” said Bellows at last.

“That’s what she said,” Smith told him.

“But—she can’t do that. We’ve got a union!” he said.

“It won’t do you any good if she has your keyman’s certification canceled,” said Smith. “Or my cousin goes out of business. Both of which seem pretty likely right now.”

“I never even got my certification,” Burnbright squeaked, and began to cry. She fell over against Mrs. Smith, who stared into the palpable gloom.

“Damn them all,” she said at last. “I was planning on retiring soon anyway. May as well do it here. I’ve set aside a little money. Perhaps I’ll open a hotel. Don’t despair, boys. We’ll think of something.”

“Could you use a message runner?” asked Burnbright, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

“Perhaps. They’re going to be hardest on you, young Smith.” Mrs. Smith turned to him. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not so bad,” said Smith, still numb with shock. “It’s not like I’ve got any money anyway. I can just disappear again.”

“Again?” Crucible lifted his head from the table.

“It’s a long story,” Smith said. An idea occurred to him. “Look. Parradan Smith gave me something I was supposed to deliver for him—”

“We have been carrying around gangster loot, haven’t we?” Burnbright looked awed.

“I might get a reward. If I do, you can have it for opening your hotel. Less whatever I need to buy a ticket to—to wherever I’m going next,” said Smith.

“That’s extraordinarily good of you,” said Mrs. Smith quietly, tipping ash.

“Aw, Nine Hells,” said Crucible. “Why is it the best caravan masters either die or leave the business?”

Smith remembered the purse Lord Ermenwyr had given him and pulled it out. “Here. I’ll go make that delivery. You get us rooms with this, get our stuff out of the carts and stowed away before the Transport Authorities seize it all. I’ll be back tonight after I visit his lordship.”

“Maybe he’ll help us too!” said Burnbright.

“Never count on a favor from the great, child,” said Mrs. Smith. She drew the pouch toward her and squinted into it. “Even if they are remarkably generous. Well! We are resolute. I’ll just step over and have a word with dear Mr. Socket. Boys, leap hence to secure what is ours. Burnbright, stay here and blow your nose, for heaven’s sake.”

She stood ponderously in the booth. “And you, young Smith. If you’re able to rejoin us, there’s a back door to the lodgings here on Fish Street, seldom watched after dark. If circumstance dictates otherwise—” She leaned forward and patted his cheek. “I’ll make good on that fried eel dinner sometime or other. Go now, dear.”



Having taken Parradan Smith’s instrument case, Smith asked one of the porters where he might find the villa of Lord Kashban Beatbrass. Upon discovering that it was at the residential end of Anchor Street, he crossed over a block and descended the long hill. He could look down on the roofs of the grand town houses, almost see into their private gardens, though around him was all the windy bustle of the poor end of the street. Fry vendors with their carts shouted their wares, beggars hobbled or rolled along bearing signs listing famous sea battles in which they’d lost various body parts, shabby-looking men went in and out of lodging houses and ship’s chandlers’.

The sea gleamed out beyond all his misery, under a band of middle air clear of fog. White sails moved on the horizon, making for Port Ward’b across the bay. Smith reflected that he’d probably head that way himself in the morning and sign on to a ship, preferably one about to leave on an extended voyage, under a new assumed name. Flint? Stoker? Ironboot?

An icy wind hit him, piercing his worn clothes, making his wounds ache, and fluttering before his eyes a green poppysilk banner. He peered at the writing on it. Yendri characters, advertising something.

Turning, he saw the shop flying the banner bore a large sign with the word BATHS. He groped and found the clay disk on its cord inside his shirt.

“Might as well,” he told himself, and went in.

The warm air hit him like a blast from a furnace, but it felt heavenly, rich with steam and Yendri perfumes that made him think of wild forest girls who wouldn’t keep their clothes on. Smith could hear a fountain tinkling somewhere and the splash of water echoing on tile. He made his way to the counter, which was almost hidden behind hanging pots of ferns and bromeliads. A Yendri in a white robe leaned at the counter, reading a city broadside. He did not look up as he inquired, “You have come for a bath, sir?”

“Actually—” Smith pulled the clay disk off over his head. “I’m supposed to find Levendyloy Alder and ask for, uh, detoxification. The full treatment.” He held out the disk. The Yendri looked up and focused on him intently.

“I am Alder,” he informed Smith. “You have been ill? You have been, hm, wounded.” He leaned over and took the disk. He passed it under his nostrils and scowled. “Poisoned. Hm. Please. Come inside.”

He led Smith behind the counter into a changing room with shelves. “Your clothes and belongings in there,” he said. He vanished behind a curtain as Smith stripped down and filled a shelf, setting all his knives in his right boot and resting Parradan Smith’s case on top of the pile with great care. Peeling off his bandages too, he considered his battered body and sighed. One of these days, he told himself, I won’t be able to run fast enough.

When the Yendri returned, he was carrying a teapot and small cup. “This way,” he said, gesturing with the cup, and Smith followed him through the curtain and into a tiled corridor. They passed arched entrances to rooms with hot and cold pools, where other people swam or lounged in the water and talked. The Yendri led him to a room with a heavy door, handed him the teapot and cup, and worked the valve lock that opened the door. Steam billowed out, hot enough to make the hall seem chilly by comparison. Smith peered in and caught a glimpse of boulders and swirling water.

“Go in,” said the Yendri, “Sit, and drink the tea. All of it, as quickly as you can. It will cleanse you. In an hour I will bring you out.”

“All right,” said Smith, and stepped in cautiously. The door closed behind him, and in a moment the air cleared enough for him to see that the room was tank-shaped, with a drain at the bottom. Water gushed from a tap in the ceiling and streamed down the rock walls, which radiated intense heat, and splattered and swirled off the boulders before finally cycling down the drain. There was one curved stone seat, awkward to sit on.

“Drink the tea,” said a disembodied voice. Smith looked up and saw a grate in the wall, high up. He could just discern the Yendri’s face behind it.

“You’re going to watch me?” he asked.

“Sometimes your people faint,” the Yendri replied. “The tea, please.”

“All right.” Smith sipped it grudgingly, but found it surprisingly good, hot and spicy. He drank it all and only when he had emptied the teapot did he notice the aftertaste.

“This isn’t a purge, is it?” he asked.

“Yes,” the Yendri replied. Smith groaned.

In the next hour a great deal of nasty stuff went down the drain, including a couple of old tattoos, exuding from his frantic skin like black syrup. Smith saw dirt from every place he’d ever lived coming to the surface, the yellow dust of Troon, the red dust of Mount Flame City, some gray residue he didn’t want to think about. Occasionally jets of hot water shot from the ceiling, flooding the filth down the drain and almost washing Smith away with it. He clung to the stone perch and cursed the Yendri steadily. The Yendri watched him, impassive; and at the end of the hour shut off the water and came to let Smith out.

Smith had planned to throttle him the minute he could reach him, but collapsed on him instead. He let the Yendri support him back down the hall to a room with a tepid pool. The Yendri toppled him in and told him to swim. Smith decided to drown, but found to his astonishment that his strength was returning, and with it an extraordinary sense of well-being. After he had splashed about a while a pair of hulking bath attendants came to haul him out, slap him with cold towels, and make him drink a lot of plain water.

They led him at last to a massage chamber, where he was soaped and rinsed and oiled and kneaded. Then they applied fresh bandages to his wounds.

By that time Smith felt wonderful and no longer wanted to kill anybody. This made the events of the next few moments all the more unfortunate.

When the attendants had done with him, they indicated he should dress himself again. He floated out to the changing room, seemingly ten years younger than he had been when he left it.

A bulky man in very fine clothes was removing them in there, and three other men stood attendance on him, taking his garments one by one and folding them with care. Smith nodded as he passed them and went to his shelf. It didn’t occur to him until his hand was on his clothes that he knew one of the men. Apparently it occurred to the other man at the same moment.

Smith heard the muttered exclamation and grabbed frantically in his right boot. He turned with a knife in his hand in time to see the other man advancing on him, drawing a blade fully ten inches long.

“This is for my cousins, you pig,” snarled the man, preparing to slash at Smith. Before he could do so, however, Smith acted without thinking and threw his little knife.

Acting without thinking was something he generally did under circumstances such as the one in which he presently found himself. The details of circumstance might vary, but the result was always the same: a corpse at his feet and a great deal of trouble.

He looked down now at the body that had his knife hilt protruding from its left eye socket, then looked at the other three men. Was that his heartbeat echoing off the tiled walls? The fight had taken place in almost complete silence.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I’m dead, aren’t I?”

The bulky man nodded, staring at him with mild amazement. “Nice work, though,” he said. “Striker was one of my best.” He gestured, and his remaining vassals seized Smith, and forced him to his knees. He turned to draw a blade from his clothes. Smith spotted a tattoo on his bare back.

“You’re a Bloodfire,” he stammered. “You wouldn’t be Lord Kashban Beatbrass, by any chance?”

“I am,” the lord replied, turning with a curved ceremonial blade.

“I’ve got something of yours!”

“And I’ll have something of yours in a minute.” Lord Kashban grabbed him by the hair.