The Book of Swords Read online

  “This is a…paper donkey?” He looks at me, puzzled.

  “This is the projection of a mechanical donkey into our world,” I say. “It’s like how a sphere passing through a plane would appear as a circle—never mind, there’s no time. Here, you must go!”

  I rip open space and shove him through it. The donkey looms now before him as a giant mechanical beast. Despite his protests, I push him onto the donkey.

  Tightly wound sinew will power the spinning gears inside and move the legs on cranks, and the donkey will gallop off in a wide circle in the hidden space for an hour, springing from glowing vine to vine like a wire walker. Teacher had given it to me to help me escape if I’m hurt on a mission.

  “How will you defend against her?” he asks.

  I pull out the key and the donkey gallops away, leaving his query unanswered.

  —

  There is no howling; no singing; no terrifying din. When Konger approaches she is completely silent. If you don’t know her, you will think she has no weapon. That is why she is nicknamed the Empty-Handed.

  The robe is hot and the dough makeup on my face heavy. The hall is filled with smoke from the scattered straw on the floor I’ve set on fire. I crouch down on the floor where the air is clearer and cooler so I can breathe. I put on a beatific smile but keep my eyes slitted open.

  The smoke swirls, a gentle disturbance that you’d miss if you weren’t paying attention.

  I know how much the lights in this hall usually flicker without the draft from a new opening in the ceiling.

  Moments earlier, I had carefully cut a few fissures in the veil between dimensions with my dagger and kept them open with strands of silk torn from Jinger’s robe. The openings were enough to let a draft through from the hidden space, enough to let me detect an approaching presence beyond.

  I picture Konger with her implacable mien, gliding toward me in hidden space like a soul-taking demon. A needle glints in her right hand, the only weapon she needs.

  She prefers to approach her victims in the unseen dimension, to prick the inside from the undefended direction. She likes to press the needle into the middle of their hearts, leaving the rib cage and the skin intact. She likes to probe the needle into their skulls and stir their brains into mush, driving them insane before their deaths but leaving no wound in the skull.

  The smoke stirs some more, she’s close now.

  I imagine the scene from her point of view: a man dressed in the robe of a jiedushi is sitting in the smoke-filled hall, a birthmark the shape of a butterfly on his cheek. He’s terrified into indecision, the rictus of a foolish smile frozen on his face even as his home burns around him. Somehow the air in the hidden space over him is murky, as though the smoke from the hall has transcended the veil between dimensions.

  She lunges.

  I shift to the right, moving by instinct rather than sense. I have sparred with her for years, and I hope she moves as she has always done.

  She meant to press her needle into my skull, but since I’ve moved out of the way, her needle pierces into the world at the spot where my head was, and with a crisp clang, strikes against the jade collar I’m wearing around my neck.

  I stagger up, coughing in the smoke. I wipe off the dough makeup from my face. Konger’s needle is so fragile that after one impact it is bent out of shape. She never attacks a second time if the first attempt fails.

  A surprised giggle.

  “A good trick, Hidden Girl. I should have gotten a better look through all that smoke. You’ve always been Teacher’s favorite student.”

  The crevices I carved between the worlds were for more than just warning. By filling the hidden space with smoke, her view of the ordinary world had become indistinct. Ordinarily, from her vantage point, my mask would have been but a transparent shell, and the bulky robe would not have concealed the slender body underneath.

  But maybe, just maybe, she chose to not see through my poor disguise, the same way she once chose to warn me of the hawk swooping down behind me.

  I bow to the unseen speaker. “Tell Teacher I’m sorry, but I won’t be returning to the mountain.”

  “Who knew you would turn out to be an anti-assassin? We will see each other again, I hope.”

  “I will invite you to share some pagoda-tree flowers then, Elder Sister. A tinge of bitterness at the heart of something sweet makes it less cloying.”

  Peals of laughter fade, and I collapse to the ground, exhausted.

  I think about heading home, about seeing my father again. What will I tell him about my time away? How can I explain to him that I’ve changed?

  I will not be able to grow up the way he wants. There is too much wildness in me. I cannot put on a confining dress and glide through the rooms of the compound, blushing as the matchmaker explains which boy I will marry. I cannot pretend to be more interested in my sewing than I am in climbing the pagoda tree next to the gate.

  I have a talent.

  I want to scale walls like Jinger, Konger, and I used to swing from vine to vine over the cliff face; I want to cross swords against worthy opponents; I want to pick a boy to marry—I’m thinking someone who is kind and has soft hands, maybe someone who grinds mirrors for a living so that he will know that there is another dimension beyond the smooth surface.

  I want to hone my talent so that it shines brightly, terrorizing the unjust and lighting the way for those who would make the world better. I will protect the innocent and guard the timid. I do not know if I will always do what is right, but I am the Hidden Girl, and my loyalty is to the tranquility yearned by all.

  I am a thief after all. I’ve stolen my life for myself, and I will steal back the lives of others.

  The sound of beating, mechanical hooves approaches.

  ⬩  ⬩  ⬩

  Matthew Hughes was born in Liverpool, England, but has spent most of his adult life in Canada. He’s worked as a journalist, as a staff speechwriter for the Canadian Ministers of Justice and Environment, and as a freelance corporate and political speechwriter in British Columbia before settling down to write fiction full-time. Clearly strongly influenced by Jack Vance, as an author Hughes has made his reputation detailing the adventures of characters like Henghis Hapthorn, Guth Bandar, and Luff Imbry who live in the era just before that of The Dying Earth, in a series of popular stories and novels that include Fools Errant, Fool Me Twice, Black Brillion, Majestrum, Hespira, The Spiral Labyrinth, Template, Quartet and Triptych, The Yellow Cabochon, The Other, and The Commons, with his stories being collected in The Gist Hunter and Other Stories and The Meaning of Luff and Other Stories. He’s also written the Urban Fantasy To Hell and Back Trilogy, The Damned Busters, Costume Not Included, and Hell to Pay. He also writes crime fiction as Matt Hughes and media tie-in novels as Hugh Matthews. His most recent books are the Luff Imbry novellas, Of Whimsies & Noubles and Epiphanies, the science-fantasy novel, A Wizard’s Henchman, and the collection Devil or Angel and Other Stories.

  In the flamboyant story that follows, a wizard’s henchman bungles an important mission and finds that he has to deal with a cascading sequence of wildly extravagant consequences.

  ⬩  ⬩  ⬩

  Baldemar ran across the flat roof at his best speed, though he was hampered by the scabbarded sword thrust through his broad belt. When he had lifted it out of its cradle, he had slipped it through at his hip, but during the race up the stairs it had somehow worked its way around to the rear and now it struck the back of his left calf with every other step. But there was no time to stop and adjust matters; the erbs that guarded the house were already emerging from the trapdoor and at once their preternatural sensory organs locked onto the fleeing thief. A strange, wavering cry, like that of a weak and hungry child, rose from each of the three long, scaly throats, and Baldemar heard the click of razor-edged claws on the roof’s flagstoned surface.

  The neighboring building overtopped this one by several stories and from its ornamental cornices hung a rope. Baldema
r had arranged it to be his emergency escape should the operation go amiss. But between the two buildings was a space as wide as Baldemar was tall and that gap was still a good ten paces away—or a very bad ten paces, if the erbs caught him before he reached it.

  There was nothing for it but to drag out the sword and let it drop, in the hope that the watchbeasts would stop to guard it, that being their function. He yanked the eldritch weapon free and let it fall. But the staccato clicking of claws did not break its rhythm and now the eerie howl of the creatures was loud in his ears, its pitch rising. That’s the sound, the thought went through his head, they make just before they seize their prey.

  Two more strides and the lip of the roof was below the ball of his right foot. He kicked off, flung himself into space, just as a reaching claw sliced through the cloth of his shirt and left a long vertical scratch down the middle of his back. But the lead erb—it would have been the big female—was not poised to leap and could not stop. She tumbled over the edge of the roof and the cry she gave as she plummeted to the pavement below was almost human in its disappointment.

  But the other two—her grown pups—were lighter and younger. They pulled up at the brink, their jaws clacking in fury, as Baldemar’s fingers connected with the rope and, unfortunately, with the brick wall against which it hung. He felt a bone snap in the middle finger of his left hand, but he ignored the pain and clung to the thick hemp, immediately reaching up with his right to haul himself higher while the toes of his boots scrabbled for purchase against the wall.

  He began to climb but had scarcely risen a body length before he heard again the sound the erbs’ dam had belled just before her claw had raked his skin—followed immediately by a thump as the body of one of her brood struck the wall below him.

  Down you go, too, was his happy thought, until he discovered he was celebrating too soon. The creature’s forearms had reached out as it leapt the gap and one of its grasping hands made contact. A talon tore through his right legging and gouged his calf muscle, the pain lancing up through his body to resonate with the ache in his broken finger.

  Baldemar gave his own cry now, of pain and fear, as the erb’s weight caused the claw to slice downward through the leg muscle until it met the curled-over leather at the top of his boot. Now he had the beast’s weight as well as his own hanging from his diminished grip on the rope. The injured hand told him it was not up to the task and he knew that he must change the situation or join the erb and its mother down below in a welter of broken bones and burst bodies.

  With his unencumbered foot, he kicked at the paw hooked into his boot just as the watchbeast reached up with its other limb and sank another claw into the curled top, its strong hind legs scrabbling against the brick. Baldemar’s efforts availed him nothing and he looked down into the erb’s yellow eyes and saw its jaws gape in anticipation of the first bite, a long, pointed tongue licking across the rows of teeth like serrated daggers.

  The sight caused him to give a reflexive jerk of the seized leg. A moment later, he felt the boot slide off his foot and the watchbeast fell into the darkness below. Relieved of the erb’s weight, he disregarded the complaints from his finger and calf, as well as the plaintive chirps from the surviving watchbeast, and scrambled up the three stories to the roof of the building.

  Coiling the rope and carrying it with him, he limped to where he had left Thelerion’s flying platform, stepped aboard, and said the words that compelled the two indentured imps to lift it into the air and carry him away. The platform’s floor pushed against his feet as they climbed into the sky, and Baldemar lowered himself into the plush, high-backed chair and rested his tired limbs on its gilded arms.

  One of the creatures that powered the platform raised itself enough to peer through the surrounding railing. It was the one with skin like fired clay. The nostrils of its pug nose distended to sniff the scent of blood and its red-and-black eyes inspected the wizard’s henchman closely.

  In a voice that had the creak of stiff leather, it said, “I do not see the Sword of Destiny.”

  Baldemar was gingerly pressing his swollen finger, feeling for the break. “Tend to your own affairs,” he said.

  “Thelerion will not be pleased.”

  That was an unfortunate truth, and now that the man had the leisure to consider his situation, he faced the fact that the perils avoided at the beginning of this flight were nothing to what awaited him at the end. They were already far above the rooftops of High Marsan, the platform arcing west to where its owner waited in his eyrie overlooking the sparsely settled caravan stop called Khoram-in-the-Waste.

  Thelerion had spent years assembling a unique ensemble: The Sword of Destiny would have completed the set. What the wizard intended to do with the items was unknown. Baldemar thought he would probably construct an invincible champion to wreak revenge on some adversary. Sorcerers were a tetchy lot, always eager to wreak revenge.

  The Sword’s acquisition would have allowed Baldemar to retire from his thirty years of service to the wizard. Or so Thelerion had said though his word was not to be relied upon. But now the Sword of Destiny was not to join Thelerion’s collection of magic armor. And Baldemar’s employer was not forgiving of failure. Indeed, lately he had begun to suspect that the thaumaturge had contracted a condition to which members of the Wizards Guild were susceptible: creeping figmentia. It was often accompanied by delusions of grandeur and outbursts of misdirected violence.

  “Change direction,” he instructed the red imp. “Go due south.”

  The compressed features of its diminutive face drew even closer together. “The master awaits,” it said.

  “What was his last instruction to you?”

  “To obey you until you returned to his manse.”

  “And have we returned there?”

  The reply was grudging. “No.”

  “Then obey me.”

  “But–”

  “Tell me,” Baldemar said. “Is Thelerion such a wizard as to encourage his underlings to second-guess his wishes? To embroider upon them their own whims and fancies?”

  A shiver shook the small shoulders. “He is not such.”

  “Then take us south, at more speed.”

  “Still–”

  “And do not speak to me again until I require it.”

  The stars above rearranged their positions as the platform turned south. Its velocity increased until the wind of their passage drew tears from Baldemar’s eyes. But it was not just the chill of the upper air that made him shiver.

  —

  Soon they had left the city of Vanderoy—home to Baldemar since he had arrived as a young man to be taken on as a junior henchman to Thelerion the Exemplary—far behind. Now the platform flew south over the forest of Ilixtrey until the grand old trees gave way to heathered downs where the villages were few and the sheep many. Soon the rolling land climbed to where it abruptly fell away. Baldemar looked back and saw the alabaster cliffs of Drorn gleaming in the starlight and knew that he was over the Sundering Sea, its faint salty reek tainting the wind that blustered against his face.

  He calculated as best he could their speed, the distance to the sea’s farther shore, and the time remaining before Thelerion would begin to wonder why the platform was not landing on the terrace of his mountainside-hugging manse, with his henchman stepping down to hand him the prize he had been sent to bring.

  Baldemar had no doubt that the thaumaturge would be able to reach out to his imps, and the moment he did so the platform would reverse course and leave him with the choice between returning to Thelerion’s wrath—legendary for its depth and inventive display—or leaping to a quick, cold death in the gray waters far below.

  But no, he thought, the imps would bring the platform down beneath me faster than I could fall. They would catch me then they would make sure I did not try again.

  He voiced a short word that was out of context yet appropriate to the gravity of his situation, folded his arms across his chest, and shivered. His ag
ile mind began rapidly considering plans, but just as quickly discarding them. Evading vengeful wizards was a complex task, even for a man with ten working fingers and both his boots.

  —

  The dark sky was paler off to his left. Baldemar limped to the portside rail and cupped a hand against the side of his face to shelter his eyes from the wind. The faint light became less pallid, and now he could see a line of gray that gradually resolved into an overcast that stretched from every horizon to every other. Ahead, the cloud layer became darker and soon he was flying through a cold rain.

  He leaned against the balustrade and looked down. Darkness still ruled the world below but after a few more shivers he saw that the sea was no longer beneath him. He was flying above another forest, this one of dark conifers stretching unbroken as far as he could see, except far off to his right, dim in the distance, where he saw cleared land, and beyond, on the slopes of an eminence, a conglomeration of buildings of various sizes surrounded by a wall, with towers set in it at intervals. Atop the heights sat a more imposing structure of gray stone, with its own crenellated walls and a tall keep from which flew a gold-and-black banner.

  He began to look around for a clearing to land in. He would send the platform on its way farther south and hope that some southern thaumaturge might seize it for his own. But even as he spotted a distant opening in the forest, the floor beneath him tilted as the platform heeled over and began to head for the castle.

  He shouted for the imps’ attention. “Not that way!” he said. “Over there!” he added, pointing.

  But the red imp poked its head up through the balustrade, and said, “We are summoned thence.”

  “Can you not resist the summons?” Baldemar said.

  The creature gave an equivocal toss of its head. “Perhaps. But we really don’t care to.”

  The platform pursued a slanted course over the town then spiraled down toward a flat-roofed round tower on the castle. A lean old man in a figured robe stood there, his mouth pursed in concentration and a short length of black wood loose in one veined hand. The imps set the vehicle down softly, as if eager to demonstrate their capabilities, then both scuttled out from under to bob and bow in front of the wizard. Baldemar remained seated in the platform’s chair, his posture and face indicative of one who expects an explanation for rude and boisterous behavior.