Beneath Ceaseless Skies #69

  Issue #69 • May 19, 2011

  “Letters of Fire,” by Margaret Ronald

  “Cold Iron and Green Vines,” by Wendy N. Wagner

  For more stories and Audio Fiction Podcasts, visit

  http://beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/

  LETTERS OF FIRE

  by Margaret Ronald

  They burned his master’s body at dawn. It was a far graver ceremony than Marten had expected: none of the howling mobs that Jana had predicted, no pointed mutilation of the body, not even a grand speech from the Bull lamenting the necessity of this death. Marten picked his way through the churned-up mud that surrounded the stone marker—another surprise; he’d expected a pauper’s grave at best. He leaned in as if to speak through the stone, then, as the bulky sack on his shoulder shifted, straightened up. “I’m glad you’re dead,” he said, louder than the whisper he’d intended. “I’m glad.”

  It was worse than disloyal to say it; it was shortsighted, forgetting the good side of his master to curse the bad. “I saved the books,” he added, as if he could apologize to the good memories alone. “Couldn’t save the elixir. Jana....” He paused, hearing yet again the endless admonishments to stay away from the distillation equipment and if you can’t be careful then let Jana handle it!

  Which she had, and so proved herself the better apprentice. In the end she’d escaped with the distillation equipment—saving him in the process, since the Bull’s men were so startled by her sudden disappearance that they didn’t look twice at the little cupboard where Marten had taken refuge.

  Overlooked, again. Even if it was to his advantage, he couldn’t help the bitter pulse at the back of his throat. Once again, the world had ended around him, and this time there would be no one to pick him up out of the wreckage.

  He tugged the sack of books into place, automatically adjusting the flap so that the light rain wouldn’t soak through as it already had his clothes. “I’m glad it’s over,” he went on, raising his voice. “You were right, I was a rotten apprentice, but you were a rotten master.”

  The letters of his master’s name flickered, then darkened further as the shadow behind him rose up. He yelped and spun around, the familiar apologies leaping to his lips even though he knew his master was dead, dead and burned.

  The man at the far end of the grave was as tall as his master but leaner, and—worse—he wore a dull red uniform marked with the Bull’s insignia. I should have kept my voice low, should have come after midnight, should have escaped like Jana. He took another step back and tripped over the stone marker, dragging the sack around as he fell.

  The soldier caught the sack and used it to pull Marten upright. “Your master?” he rumbled, his voice like the groan of the war machines he no doubt piloted. “I didn’t know Cathacaris had an apprentice.”

  “He—I—” Marten tried to yank the books away, but the soldier held them fast.

  Scarred hands pried back the flap, taking the same care Marten had to keep the rain out. “These are Cathacaris’ books?”

  “No,” Marten said. “They’re mine.”

  That earned him a silent, thoughtful gaze from the soldier. The man was as unemotional as the great engines that now surrounded the city. “By rights,” he said, scratching at his short gray beard, “you should be executed and burned.”

  Marten took a deep breath, seeing in his mind’s eye the pyre, the silently watching citizens. “Fine,” he said, letting out a long breath. “Burn me, then. But leave the books alone.”

  The man blinked, gazed at him in silence a moment, then slung the bag over his shoulder. “Come on.”

  “What—” Marten stumbled back, but too late; the soldier had him by the arm, nearly dragging him off his feet.

  The Bull’s man marched him out of the graveyard, past the Golden Square, past the remnants of the palace, all the way to the Lilygreen Slums, where the Bull’s men had set up their camp. Mechanical towers loomed from either side of the streets, some with Lilygreen children playing on them, heedless of the power behind the great gun barrels. Marten stared as they passed—he had heard the tread of the machines, even seen them from a distance, but never up close. Here they were less the implacable monsters Jana had described; more haphazard, pieces of scrap held in place with tarnishing bands of brass; something more to marvel at than fear.

  But then, he wasn’t seeing them in action. What had they looked like when they shot his master out of the sky? What were they when arrayed against a single man—a man infused with the elixir, a man capable of flight and destruction and all the things his master had accomplished, but still only one man?

  More men in red bearing the insignia of a crowned bull stood at attention, saluting the soldier as they passed. A Lilygreen toddler imitated the salute gravely.

  “Please,” Marten managed, “I’ll let the Bull kill me in person if that’s what it takes, just don’t burn the books, please.” Craven, Jana’s voice said in the back of his head, and he flinched.

  “Quiet.” The Bull’s man turned a corner, approaching the plaza that marked the edge of Lilygreen, and the edge of the city proper, if it came to that. Two more machines flanked a still-smoking hole in the city wall, hunched over as if regretting the damage they’d done. A separate line of tents stood before them, too high and unwieldy to match the other soldiers’ barracks. Here the soldier stopped and ran one hand through his hair, smoothing it to some form of neatness. “Gerda!” he called. “Are you awake?”

  For answer, a dull boom shook the closest tent. Something inside clattered to the ground, rocking back and forth with a noise like a dropped tin plate. A gloved hand dragged back the tent flap to reveal a faceless black thing with a single bar of reflected red across its eyes. Marten gave a startled cry and tried to pull free. He’s not even going to bother with the Bull, he’s going to feed me straight to the machines—

  The creature raised a hand to its face and flipped it back—a mask, he realized, a mask with a glass strip instead of eyes. The heavy-jawed, scarred woman underneath gave him a puzzled glance, then turned her gaze to the Bull’s soldier. “Fittings on the Tallstrider unit are busted. It won’t be ready to travel for another two weeks at the very least. Bright side is, that’ll be enough time to set up the communal defense here, so it’s not like we’re in a rush.”

  “I’ll pass it along.” He pushed Marten forward. “I’ve got a recruit for you.”

  “What?” Marten stared at him, unable to believe he’d heard correctly.

  Gerda ignored him. “I thought we were just training the locals. Not actively recruiting.”

  “This is different. He’s Cathacaris’ apprentice.”

  At that she looked up, searching the soldier’s face. “Roon, you’re treading a dangerous line.”

  “Too much has been lost, Gerda.”

  “No!” Marten jerked away, and this time Roon let him go. “I can’t—I’m not a soldier, and I’m certainly not one of your soldiers!” He might not have any loyalty to his home left—his master had beaten that out of him, claiming that an alchemage owed fealty only to his knowledge—but to be put on the front lines, cannon fodder for the war machines—

  “It’s us or the pyre, and you’re too young for that.” Gerda paused. “I take that back. We’ve fought plenty of younger alchemages, but it still doesn’t sit well with me when they go down.”

  “I’d rather not see him go the same way,” Roon said, still speaking to Gerda rather than Marten. “Too much has been lost,” he repeated, and held out the books as if they were made of spun glass.

  “On that we’ll agree.” She stripped off her gloves, took the books, and offered a hand to Marten. “Welcome to the Wrig
hts’ Division, apprentice. You’re safe with us.”

  Marten hesitated. This life, ground under the heel of the Bull’s soldiery, or the pyre... but he was a coward, and the books, the books.... He sagged and took Gerda’s hand, nodding. Just till I can escape.

  Roon nodded, then quickly planted a kiss on her smoke-stained cheek before turning and walking back into the rain. Marten stared after him, then flinched as Gerda clapped his shoulder. “Don’t cower, lad; you’re too tall for it. Come on; you can have the center cot.”

  * * *

  A blare from a trumpet woke him at dawn, and Marten scrambled to his feet, schooling his body to absolute stillness and waiting for the first words from his master, the ones that would indicate whether today would be bearable or one of the other days.

  It took him a moment to remember that his master was dead and there would be no more other days. Not now, nor ever again. The thought left him strangely light, and he stared at the end of the tent, the world—the Bull’s camp—coming into focus around him.

  Around him, the other cots gave up their inhabitants, Gerda among them. A short girl with her hair in stubby brown pigtails regarded him with puzzled fascination. “Have we got a new one already?”

  “Looks like he’s mastered reveille,” a balding man in a far cot muttered. “Good lad, just so long as you don’t overdo it. Where’s he from? Fourteenth div?”

  Marten drew breath, ready to lie, apologize, anything to avoid the blow that must be coming, but Gerda’s hand clamped down on his shoulder. “He’s a local,” she said, in the same casual tone she’d used the night before. “He’ll have time to go through basic later; for now he’s taking on Wright duties.” The balding man made a rude noise, but the look he gave Marten was friendly enough.

  “You’ll love it here,” the girl said, pulling on a jacket that Marten slowly recognized as a brown version of the Bull’s red uniforms. “Wait—he’s not going to be piloting Tallstrider, is he? That’s my job!”

  “If he were, Vrit, then you’d just have to deal with it.” She handed Marten a stack of brown clothes and pretended not to notice when he cringed away at the sudden movement. “Go on and change.”

  Over breakfast—hard biscuit and limewater, out in the plaza with the rest of the Bull’s troops—Gerda brought him a little to one side and set the stack of books in front of him. “I looked at these last night. Alchemage stuff. Your master’s?”

  “No. Mine,” he said, talking more to his biscuit than to her. Eye contact was one of the things that could set his master off—or lack of it, some days, and he never knew which day it was till the first blow fell. He’d only really been comfortable meeting Jana’s eyes, because she’d been through the same.

  “Your work?”

  He nodded and swallowed a dry hulk of biscuit. “It’s not like they matter,” he managed in a burst of defiance that surprised even himself. “There’s no one in five countries who can use them.”

  That was all due to the Bull. Every country he conquered had been given one unchangeable ultimatum: all alchemages were to be executed. His master had railed against the purge, calling it one moment the act of a desperate man, a petty king’s last lash, and the next the scourge of true knowledge. You may be all that’s left, my apprentices, and therefore you must uphold the tradition of our magic. We are here to write our names on the world in letters of fire. Anything less is a betrayal of all we are.

  “Maybe not,” Gerda said slowly. “I sure as hell can’t make sense out of the first half. Roon is right about so much being lost; without the alchemages to translate, most of their records are undecipherable. But this,” she opened the top book to the later pages, “this looks like an experiment log.”

  Marten gazed at the cramped columns of numbers, the rudimentary sketches, the marginal notes, all in his own handwriting. His master had mocked him for it, pointing him instead toward the theories that filled the first half of the book, the philosophy of speiric power. Letters of grease pencil? How like you, Marten. Now recite your lesson again, or you know what will happen. And Jana had looked on, sorrowful and patient.

  He really hoped she’d gotten away.

  “I wrote those parts,” he said finally, crumbling the last of the biscuit into powder. “I thought if I had some idea about what the elixir did, if I knew what effect it had, I’d be able to control it when the time came.” Control, his master had said, control is the essence of the true alchemage.

  “Repeatable experiments,” Gerda mused. “I can appreciate that.” She took a long sip of her limewater, making the face that all of the Bull’s soldiers did when drinking the stuff. None of them had a taste for sour food, it seemed. “Well, I wasn’t sure what good you’ll be to us in the Wrights, but at least we’re working with the same stuff.”

  Marten looked up, then away, unsure what she meant.

  “You didn’t know? The raw material you use to make your ‘elixir’—that’s thaumic ore. It’s what we use to power the automatons. Technically, we’re doing the same thing you do, only we’re using machines instead of minds, and so the outcome’s more predictable. And machines are less likely to go crazy on you.”

  “Or turn a house inside out,” he said, thinking of the times his master lost his temper while using the elixir—the buildings reduced to ash, the people picked up and dropped from twenty feet up. And then there were the Melay Hills, and the village of Highfont....

  “Exactly. We may not have all the powers the alchemages did, but we’re a lot more dependable. And that, it turns out, is what wins the war.” She hesitated, as if remembering who she was talking to, but let the point stand. “So we might have some use for you. Just have to figure out what.”

  “Well,” he said, trying to gauge whether she’d cuff him, “you’re probably not going to feed me to your war machines—”

  Gerda burst out laughing. “Do people really say that?”

  “No.” He paused, thinking of Jana. “Mostly not.”

  “Good God, lad, no wonder you’ve been pissing your boots. No, we’re not feeding you to anything. Though you could do with some feeding, as skinny as a heron you are,” she added, and snagged a second biscuit from a passing Wright. “But we’ve got no call for talk about ‘elixir,’ ‘grand speiric theory,’ or even ‘magic,’ come to that. It’s ore distillation, practical thaumics, and motile impetus, or just making the damn things move if you’re in a hurry. Got it?”

  He was silent a moment. Just a new language to learn. And my master always said I was good with languages... the one thing I was better at than Jana. Not that it mattered. And they couldn’t keep the books away from him forever. All he had to do was stay hidden until he could flee.

  It occurred to him that staying with the army might not be as bad as the days with his master. He quashed the thought not nearly fast enough. “I think so.”

  “Right.” She unrolled a length of padded cloth. “Starting from basics, then. This is a wrench.”

  * * *

  The days were not bad, on the whole, not for someone as used to his master’s routine as he’d been. True to his impression, there were no more other days, now with his master gone. That didn’t make it easy. For now—and, as far as he could tell, for the foreseeable future—he was excused from the weapons drill by Roon’s order, but the rest of the Wrights’ Division had their own drills, joining the others for a hundred laps around the square (even when one of the war machines had settled in their path, providing an obstacle to be climbed, until one of the Wrights complained, and then just something to detour around) and keeping to their schedule. Roon even came to check on him several times, sometimes bringing an extra ration or a spare flask of the cold tea the Bull’s soldiers preferred to limewater.

  There was no sign of the army’s leader, the king, the conqueror Bull seeking to eradicate all traces of Marten’s master. Which meant Jana might still be free. So he hoped.

  As for his own freedom, there didn’t seem to be much chance to get away—for
all that the Wrights treated him well, this was an army. The few times he did plan to leave, Gerda had some reason to keep the books with her for the day.

  But for all that, none of the Wrights seemed to suspect that he was an alchemage’s apprentice. They treated him as they might any new recruit. They were not what he’d expected when he imagined the faceless soldiers of the Bull: there was Leith, the bald man who piloted the squat treaded automaton called Badger (even though it looked more like a toad) and who was therefore in charge of its care, and Barre, his younger brother, who kept track of the ore and monitored which machines used what. Kutla complained incessantly about the poor fittings, Tannz had been called up in front of Gerda twice in the last week for running a rigged dice game against the locals (that had been a shock, to realize he was thinking of his former countrymen as “the locals”), and the oldest, Cena, decided Marten needed socks and added some to her incessant knitting.

  And there was Vrit, the youngest at barely fourteen, whose enthusiasm for piloting the Tallstrider machine was almost as disturbing as her age. It was as far from Badger’s trundling armory as it was possible to get: six long, jointed legs rose to a single turret, from which Vrit aimed a gun nearly as wide around as her waist and chattered amiably about combat capabilities on varying terrain.

  They accepted him. And, to his dismay, he came close to accepting them. What comfort was here was not the comfort of shared pain that had been between him and Jana, but something else entirely.

  He wasn’t sure if he liked it. But he was getting better at it, and the driving urge to escape faded a little, buried under long hours of training body and mind.

  Gerda, perhaps because she was the only one who knew his secret, took on his training personally. The mechanics of it—metal and brass, leather fittings that gave out far too easily but needed the flexibility—were like the distillation equipment writ large, and Marten approached them with the same dread. But nothing shattered under his touch here, even if he couldn’t quite grasp the purpose of anything.