Previous Chapter

The morning sun shone down on the bluffs, a bright, harsh light that cast the hills in hard edges and deep shadows. A thin haze drifting up from the Manor house was the only smudge on the bright blue sky. Cassie took a deep breath and let it out slowly, revelling in the simple pleasure of seeing again. Her brief absence from the world of the looking had left her with a new found appreciation for a sense she had always taken for granted.

Going blind was a fact of her life. Up until the last few days she had assumed that the gifts she had would make up for that. Certainly, her sense of hearing was not normal. She could hear every word Roy was saying in spite of the fact that she was up on the bluff’s highest point and he was down in the Armory. That didn’t mean her sight meant nothing to her.

An uncomfortable analogy to the quest for the Secret of Steel popped into her mind but she pushed it aside. Having the opportunity to enjoy her sight again didn’t mean she could ignore her ears. She turned around and headed down towards the back of the house, where Mrs. Sondervan was busy scrubbing blood out of Roy’s shirt.

“There’s a guest coming up from town,” Cassie said. “He sounds like he’s about twenty minutes away. If I have the timing right he probably got off the morning skytrain, which means he’s likely the gentleman you contacted for Mr. Harper.”

The housekeeper nodded, pulling the shirt off the washboard and pinning it to the drying line with fast, practiced movements. “That’s likely. Mr. Booker was always good at getting where he wanted to go quickly. I’ll let Mr. Harper know.”

“No, I’ll tell him.” The words came out faster than she’d intended, faster than she was comfortable with. “I just wanted you to know when to expect him.”

Mrs. Sondervan gave her a sideways look, the meaning of which she wasn’t entirely certain of, but nodded. “Thank you, Miss Fairchild. That’s very kind of you.”

The inside of the Manor was a depressing wreck. Even the parts of the house that hadn’t burned were full of lingering smoke, which had contributed to her spending the morning outdoors. The men were in the process of pulling up broken and burnt boards out of the walls and floors of the house and replacing them, a process that involved crowbars, hammers and the occasional curse.

Roy and Mr. Sondervan were working to patch a hole in the hallway floor. A few feet closer to the front of the house her brother was ripping the burnt ends of boards off the wall studs. His hand had returned to normal but there were still odd notes in his voice when he spoke which might be a cause for concern. She hadn’t gotten him to hold still long enough to investigate it yet.

That wasn’t about to change, either. When Brandon saw her coming he glanced down the hall and said, “Georg, give me a hand with this rubbish, will you?”

The rubbish in question was a barrel, sawed in half, that the men had been throwing broken and burnt boards into. They weren’t even full and Brandon was more than capable of moving both of them on his own when they were. Clearly her brother was deliberately clearing the building for reasons of his own. She ignored the two of them as they gathered their things and left her alone in the hall with Roy.

The Manor’s owner was standing on a ladder down in the Armory, his head and shoulders protruding through the hole as he worked on the joists. As she approached he pulled a pair of nails out of his teeth and set them on one of the wooden beams along with his hammer. “Morning, Miss Fairchild.”

Cassie glanced at the bandage on his forearm. “Should you really be doing that?”

“I can’t leave my house a wreck, can I?” The flames that crackled within him had choked down low as she approached but now they growled with a strange overtone she didn’t really understand. There was a frightening edge to it that she’d never heard before.

“It sounds like Mr. Booker is on his way up from town.”

“Moving fast as always,” he grumbled, bracing his good hand on the edge of the hole and dragging himself up into a sitting position on the floor on the far side of the hole. He pulled his feet up and levered himself into a standing position then stared at her. “Was there anything else?”

“Are you sure you’re feeling well, Mr. Harper? You don’t seem yourself.”

“I don’t know if I count as healthy right now but I’ve been in much worse condition.” Roy rubbed the palms of his hands together, a gesture she’d never seen from him before. “Your vision seems to have returned.”

“Yes.”

The silence between them stretched into something awkward before Roy finally said, “Why did you want Marius to leave with the cornerstone?”

She jumped as if Roy had burned her, the shock racing through her body before her better sense caught up with it. “What do you mean?”

The question was a flimsy attempt to cover for her guilty reaction and Roy clearly knew it. “Don’t act stupid, Cassandra. I’ve dueled with that coin before and I’ve heard it hit the ground, or rather I should say I didn’t hear it hit the ground. There’s only one reason I would this time. It shouldn’t take that much for you to alter the course of a coin flip from what I’ve seen and I heard the note you used to do it. I just want to know why.”

In the light of day it was a much harder question to answer than it had been just twelve hours ago. How much of her vision the night before had come from the lingering dread she carried out of Riker’s Cove? How much was her own insecurities born from losing her sight for the first time? How much had been carefully planted by Marius, who knew far more about stone singers than the average person? It was impossible to tell. The best thing to do was try to make him understand what her thoughts had been in the moment.

“I heard Huaxili last night, Mr. Harper. As I was crossing the bluffs.” Nervous and at an inexplicable loss for words, she paused to wet her lips. “She… we came to understand each other, I think.”

“You let Marius take her because she wanted to go?” He sounded horrified.

“No! No, she wanted to stay, Mr. Harper. She has some purpose in mind for you, whether it’s revenge or simply malice I couldn’t tell but she had her sights set on you.” Cassie shuddered slightly at the memory of her brief contact with the Tetzlani spirit. “And she was in your blind spot because you thought she was contained but she wasn’t. I’ve been able to sense her influence since we returned from Riker’s Cover. It’s probably always been there but I wasn’t able to hear it until my ears were forced to make up for the lack of my eyes.”

Roy’s shock turned to concern. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because I didn’t understand what it was, had no idea there was a Tetzlani earth goddess at all, much less that she was hiding in your Armory. You never asked us to go down there before. Which, given what was down there, was a fairly prudent decision on the whole.”

Roy sighed and ran a hand through his hair, his expression pensive. “Fine. I suppose those are good enough reasons as any for it and there wasn’t exactly an opportunity to discuss the issue ahead of time.”

“I would have if I could.”

“I don’t doubt it, Miss Fairchild, but that doesn’t make things any less difficult.” His gaze flicked past her towards the front door. “I’m going to have to explain all this mess to Books. He didn’t want to leave the coalstoking thing with me in the first place.”

She wondered why Roy would have to explain anything to his friend in the first place. At first glance he didn’t seem like much of a leader, lacking the kind of personable air that usually marked such people. Yet she’d noticed most people quickly gave way to his brusque energy and clarity of purpose. “Perhaps I can explain things to him-”

“No.” He said it with sharp certainty. “You definitely should not do that. In fact, I’d like it if you and Brandon gathered your things and slipped down the back side of the bluff to spend a few days in town.”

For a moment Cassie was too shocked to say anything. Then she rallied and asked, “Why?”

Roy pulled his attention back to her, his expression blank again. “Frankly speaking, because I’d rather he not know what you look like. Out here in the West we have one kind of dangerous men and let’s not kid ourselves, I’m one of the most dangerous among them. But there’s an entirely different breed of them that work in the shadows of the powerful and Reginald Booker is the pinnacle of their kind. Not even I know how he’s going to take this.”

“You don’t think he’ll defer to your judgement on this?”

“Deferring judgement is not a concept he understands, Miss Fairchild, and I’d rather not take chances.”

“I understand.” She really didn’t. It was hard to piece together what exactly he was implying but whatever had him in this unusual mood it was something that intimidated him more than the greatest duelist in Tetzlan. So she swallowed down all the objections she wanted to make and said, “We’ll be on our way in a few minutes, then. If my letter contains a useful lead on the Secret of Steel perhaps we’ll just follow it up. Leave town for a few days.

“That might be best.”

“Very well.” She turned to go and collect Brandon.

To her surprise, Roy walked her to the front door. As he held it open for her he said, “Cassie. You and your brother are still welcome back here once this business is done.”

“Thank you, Mr. Harper.” She swallowed once, her voice suddenly thick. In truth, she wasn’t entirely sure they were. Even if Roy said it, even if she still felt she’d made the right choice, she still sensed a hurt in his voice, a sense of betrayal that was entirely justified. She’d damaged something last night. Done far more hurt to it with a single note than she’d done to her own eyes with an hour of singing in Riker’s Cove.

Maybe she shouldn’t come back.

But that was a decision she’d have to make later. For now, she’d have to keep moving. “Hearthfires, Roy.”

“Hearthfires, Cassie. Keep your brother out of trouble.”

“Of course.”

As she went to find Brandon she found herself wondering if she was satisfied with that. They might be the last words they ever exchanged and that thought filled her with a profound sadness. It was an odd thing to think. Not one brought by the melody of the situation, not one inspired by a sense of supernatural dread. It felt more like one that arose from within her own heart and that almost made it worse.

So she pushed it down and went on her way.

Previous Chapter

Roy offered the dueling mark to Marius. “Do you want to toss it or should I?”

“Down south we have the challenged person toss the coin,” Marius replied, lowering the point of his sword as he shook his arms out. “The challenger is also heads, though if the Columbian traditions are different I’m happy to do things your way. I suppose if I win I get to take the cornerstone back to Tetzlan with me but I’m curious what you expect to get if you win.”

“You go home and leave me in peace.” He gestured back towards the smoking ruin of the house’s east wall with his off hand. “And pay for the lumber to fix my house.”

“You burned that on your own, senor.” Marius smiled, though, and patted at the pocket where he kept his coin purse. “Yet I think arrangements can be made. I would like to add one thing to my prize, if you don’t mind.”

Roy’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

“The iron plate you kept the cornerstone on.” Marius shifted the box clamped under his left arm until it made its way down to his off hand, then rotated it so Roy could see the strange marks on it. Then he set it on the ground off to one side. “That mirror frame in your basement damaged the wards on the box I brought to contain it and I’ll need something to reinforce them.”

Odd that Marius would want an iron plate to repair wards damaged by steel. Roy had always been under the impression that the two metals were very similar in function but perhaps there was some hint at a difference there. He filed the thought away for later, as it wasn’t the thing to focus on now. “Fine. You can have the plate if you tell me what you did with Miss Fairchild if I win.”

“I swear to do so regardless.” Marius leaned back, stretching out his torso and chest, then snapped back upright and raised his blade to a guard. “If there is nothing else, let us begin. I have a schedule to keep.”

“Will you use magic?” Roy asked.

“No.”

The man’s answer was flat and immediate, giving no hint as to whether he still could use magic. Roy kept his annoyance away from his face. He’d been hoping to bring his own talent for manipulating flames to the third bout but, after he’d already played his strongest cards, he was pretty much out of options himself. 

He’d already revealed the secret to the Manor walls and exhausted all the heat he brought with him from them. Marius probably wouldn’t wait for him to go back for more. And conjuring ice from the necklace too frequently was a risky move, as well. It got hungry. In fact, at this point Roy probably had just as little magic at his disposal as the duelist did. Maybe less.

So it would have to be a straight fight.

Roy assumed his own stance, weight even, messer between himself and Marius. The other man had a reach advantage and, by all accounts, a much longer history as a duelist. It was going to be a difficult bout. Other than a brief encounter with a Tetzlani gold drinker a few months ago he hadn’t traded blows with an Iberian swordsman in years and he tried to remember their habits. Conventional wisdom was that they were quite technical, but a little effete. Close quarters might be the way to go.

He brought the dueling mark in his offhand up and displayed it for Marius to see then balanced it on his finger tips. A deft curl of his hand and it wound up in the crook of one finger, perched on this thumb. “The Lord in Raging Skies judges the rightness of all disputes,” Roy said, drawing on half remembered phrases from the circuit judges he’d met. “May he judge between you and I.”

“The earth is the foundation of life,” Marius replied. “If your path is level it will favor you. If not, may you sink beneath.”

That seemed like all there was to say so Roy threw the coin. It flew into the air with a sharp metallic ringing noise, glimmers of starlight reflecting on its surface.

Marius was moving before Roy’s thumb was fully extended. However instead of rushing in headfirst, exploiting the incredibly sharp movements Roy had come to expect from the other to close the distance, Marius reached high. With a blinding sweep of his blade he slapped the tip of Roy’s sword, then looped back to try and prick Roy’s hand as his wrist was wrenched out of line. It was a shockingly fast move and Roy only kept his hand unbloodied because he jerked his own guard up reflexively.

It saved his hand but left him with his own blade too high to block and Marius pressed forward, forcing his point up to try and prick Roy’s sword arm a second time. Roy was already moving forward as well, which saved him as the point wound up under his arm before it could find its new line of attack. For the moment he was spared due to the dullness of the rapier’s edge, which slid along his sleeve without biting in.

His own attempt to slash Marius’ sword arm was stopped when the duelist shoved his left forearm up under Roy’s right wrist. Just like that, the two of them came to grips. Roy made a grab for Marius’ off hand, thinking he could throw the other, but instead he offered his left arm to the darting point of the rapier.

It had been a long time since he’d been run through. It was only an arm this time but it hurt just as badly as he remembered. The worst part was the fact that Roy was running out of time before the coin hit ground, rendering a verdict, and so far Marius was clearly the better duelist at the moment. Teeth gritted, Roy pressed even further forward.

For a brief moment he saw a shocked expression on Marius’ face before his headbutt connected, only slightly deflected by the brims of their hats. Headgear and combatants scattered in all directions. Roy kept his feet in spite of the searing pain of the rapier point pulling out of his arm and his sword windmilled about, aimed at the space Marius’ neck would normally occupy. Unfortunately the Tetzlani duelist wasn’t as hard headed as Roy was and he had ducked away from the impact. The edge of the messer scraped along the top of his skull, scattering a mix of hair and blood, but did little lasting harm. Roaring in pain, Marius snapped up in his guard once more and Roy matched him.

Blood was already running down the side of the other man’s face and Roy could feel his own trickling down his left arm. As his weight shifted forward for the next exchange a single note chimed across the bluff. It rang with supernatural clarity and brought both men to a halt, breathing hard.

They stared at each other for a moment, the unspoken question of who would go and look at the coin hanging between them.

“Heads.”

Cassie’s voice cut between them like a physical thing.

“It’s over here, if you want to look at it yourself.”

With a deliberate effort Roy broke away from Marius’ death glare and glanced around to find Cassie standing a few dozen feet away, the dueling mark softly gleaming on the ground beside her. He walked over and looked at it.

“Dust and ashes.”

Marius sheathed his rapier but remained where he was. “Then I’ll take my prize.”

Roy also stowed his weapon and pressed his hand over his wound, trying to staunch both sides of the wound by pressing the other side into his shirt. “I’m sorry to impose on you right away, Miss Fairchild, but could you ask your brother to bring the iron plate for the cornerstone up from the Armory?”

From the look she gave him he could tell she wasn’t happy to be sent away immediately but she headed into the house without protest. He did notice she went though the front door, rather than use the more convenient entrance he’d just added. Roy himself had no such computations. “Come on,” he said, tilting his head towards the Manor. “Let’s get a bandage on your head before you go.”

“Very generous of you,” Marius said, cautiously following along behind. “You could have hoped I would bleed out on the way home and spare your reputation that way.”

“I’d rather not risk you dying and leaving that rock in the middle of the desert.” Roy walked through the scorched remains of his house towards the kitchen where he kept a small surgical kit. “My reputation, such as it is, isn’t worth that.”

Roy pulled the kit down from a cupboard and set it on the table. He took a roll of bandages and bottle of alcohol for himself while Marius took the scissors and quickly snipped his hair back from the edge of his wound. “You know, nothing about this job went the way I expected.”

“Burning my own house wasn’t something I ever wanted to do, either.” Roy hissed as the alcohol stung his wound. “Do you mind if I ask you something?”

“He’s dead.”

Roy turned to the other man in surprise. “Who?”

“Whatever man you knew who died touching the cornerstone. There’s no way to revive them once they’re like that. We tried it for decades and all we managed to do was turn a stone corpse into a flesh one. They’re probably not actually alive in there.” Marius dabbed alcohol on his scalp with a bandage then grimaced. “The cults say a lot of things about their gods that probably aren’t true.”

“So he hasn’t been aware and suffering as a living block of stone for the last six years?”

Marius lowered his hands and looked Roy straight in the eye. “I don’t truly know.” The uncertainty in his eyes matched his words. “And there’s no way to ask anyone who would. If it makes you feel any better, once we’re done with the stone and it’s destroyed we believe anyone who’s touched it will return to flesh. They’ll be dead, but at least you’ll know for sure.”

“How long will that take?”

“I don’t know. A year. Maybe three.”

The kitchen door swung open and Brandon walked in, carrying the warding box in one hand. He had reverted to his normal form except for the hand that cradled the plate, which seemed like it was covered in more layers of wood than normal for his free form. Roy frowned. He’d never seen Brandon touch iron directly before. Most people didn’t. Wordlessly, the knight put the box down on the table and gave Roy a curious look.

Ray ignored it and gestured to Marius. “Take it and get out of here before I change my mind.”

The Tetzlani man nodded and rearranged things so the box’s damaged side was sitting on the plate, then he picked it all up and said, “Thank you, Mr. Harper. I’m sorry for all that this has cost you. Ultimately, that happened because my people couldn’t protect the cornerstone properly. We won’t let that happen again.”

Then he took the box and was gone.

Roy found himself staring blankly at the table top for several moments. Then Brandon asked, “What now? Are we going to run him down later and steal it back?”

“No. I’m not sure it’s worth it at this point. Let’s call it a night. Tomorrow we have to find Georg and start fixing my house.”