Illustration by Michael "Mikos" Mikolajczyk

Mightier Than the Sword
By Bill Ward

The kid was good; I didn’t feel his hand in my pocket so much as the nearby hum of his too-tense frame. Autrain Ford was throwing its biggest festival of the year and the crowds were thick, a knot of blurred faces and shoving shoulders. And there I was, pleasantly anonymous and drinking in the sights on the Ford’s main bridge, a stone monster wider than a country hamlet but otherwise like any house-lined and cobbled city street. The whole place was a riot of sound and light, crammed with stalls and kiosks, and the podiums, platforms, and stages of troubadours and performers of all kinds. Lost in the warmth and light of it all, you’d never know the Yendez slid coolly south somewhere beneath your feet. You’d never suspect you were being robbed.

As I said, the kid was good, but so was I in my days as a street sharp. I snatched his wrist and spun, saw the fear and surprise and anger and all of that writhing for dominance in his face. I just frowned, smacked him lightly on the back of his head, and released my grip on his arm. I flashed the Guild handsign ‘brother’ and he gave a quick, embarrassed nod and vanished into the crowd. Somewhere in the distance the jongleurs struck up another round of the Quadrille, the weird dance celebrating the heroic sacrifice of a family of barrel makers sometime in Autrain’s distant past. It was the reason for the festival, and as good an excuse for a party as any other.

Only amateurs and those out to prove their bones were practicing the art tonight; all of Autrain Ford was swarming with security of every conceivable kind. There was the truncheon-armed municipal watch and its citizen militia, some of which had marched from as far away as the Seven Towns for the festival. Imperials of every stripe prowled about as well; furloughed regulars armed with sword and buckler, Emperor’s Guard halberdiers in black and gold, and new model regimentals equipped with harquebus and short-shafted pike. The Holy Heroes, fighting arm of the church militant, had whole units stationed there, dour men scowling at the city’s merriment beneath polished morions, fingering pistols. It was a great place to get yourself killed.

“Hal? Hal is that you? Thank the gods, but you are exactly the person I want to see!” That was Vocachio yelling in my ear, and those words also happened to be my second least preferred greeting. ‘By order of His Imperial Majesty I place you under restraint,’ being the first.

Vocachio nam Scorrzi was, is, an old friend of mine. He comes from a time in my life before the Guild, before the complications, before I was infected with the mindset of the hunted and cautious man. Seeing him again — flush with excitement and drink beneath the sculpted line of his beard, his blonde hair in disarray, a stupid grin on his face — was like meeting a happier me. Even though I smelled the trouble from far off, even though my better sense screamed warning, I was immediately in his power.

“Holy hells, Hal. Holy hells.” Vocachio shook his head in disbelief, and embraced me. It had been twelve years, or more. “Holy hells Hal, but I’ll buy you a stoop or two of piss-yellow wine and we’ll weep with laughter tonight.”

And then he did something dramatically unexpected.

After dragging me by the shirtfront a short way through the crowd, he vaulted onto a low stage upon which a juggler juggled and, after I had reluctantly mounted beside him, he launched into verse in so commanding and clear a voice that all faces in the crowd were transfixed.

And who, on nights like this expects
To find within the crowd a friend,
As this throng from all the world collects
Its thousand faces without end.

Once cursed, I have changed my luck,
For in this sea there swims a man,
A friend of mine that now I pluck
To bear him hence . . . and get him drunk!

And with a bow he finished the impromptu ditty, and the people gave a raucous applause and called for more. At this he shook his head and made a deft pantomime as if unstoppering a flagon and drinking heartily. The crowd roared its approval. He bowed again before dropping from the side of the stage with a practiced leap. I did my best to follow -- somewhat overwhelmed -- behind.

“You’re a player?” I asked when we had ducked inside the comparative quiet of a sackhouse and settled onto some benches. “I thought you were going into your father’s line.”

“What, buying wool from blunthead herders? That’s no kind of life.” Ale was brought, and Vocachio quaffed his in one neat motion, and banged the table for more. “Besides, we don’t all end up doing what our fathers expect. You, for example.”

“I’m an antiquities trader.” I said as I sipped my thin, bitter beer.

“Goat bollocks,” he laughed, “although I suppose that’s one way of putting it. I’ve known since you first went in for the Guild, Hal. We both lived in Saguntum for a couple of years after university, remember? I heard things.” I frowned at this, and asked him who else knew.

“Oh, I dunno. Did anyone else care? I don’t recall you having very many friends.” He drank his second ale more slowly. “Sorry, horrid thing to say. ‘He who strikes a friend, slays himself,’ yes? The truth is Hal, you are the only one that can help me.”

There it was again. Something you learn in my business is that people can want something so bad they convert it into a need. And the need for that thing -- a jewel, a book, a killing -- becomes itself a kind of peril; the peril of an uncontrollable longing for something that they themselves can’t accomplish. It’s like being stuck down deep in a hole, and guys like me are the only ones with the rope. It was in Vocachio’s eyes when he first saw me, and again as we talked, a different kind of fire than any other.

“I’m not working.” I said, and motioned for the barwench’s attention.

“Then that’s perfect. You can do this thing that I have lined up.”

“Thing is, ‘Chio, right now is a bad time--”

“Hold on Hal,” he interrupted me in a rush, “It’ll be easy. For you it’d be simple as Spring ‘her garlanded shoulder’s a’glisten with the wet of dawn, and all life its purpose known,’ as the poet said. Sorry, that’s the drink talking. But really, the job’s a good’n,” he chuckled, something slightly manic creeping into his voice. The strains of the Quadrille roared to life again outside, a mash of pipes, lutes, and untrained voices.

‘The job.’ Where had he picked up that bit of jargon? I wondered if he had approached anyone else about this supposedly easy piece of thievery. “Give me one good reason.” I said, and he looked at me as if seeing me for the first time. That’s right. I’ve changed too, friend. Be sure you know that before we proceed. The next round arrived and he continued.

“This man, Calginus nam Tofraet, is rich. A collector of ‘antiquities,’ I think you called them, treasures unnumbered. Gemstones, art, coin, whatever. There’s only one small thing I want in the whole place, and the rest is yours.” He grew excited as he spoke, the actor in him taking over, modulating his voice, finding a rhythm. To hear him speak was really quite beautiful. “I have a person inside, the housemaid actually, poor silly thing loves me with ‘affection’s first fire, fierce consuming flame.’ You know what I mean. She’s described the place. She can deactivate the wards laid on the doors. And Tofraet is in Stonebranch all this month. It’s all very simple. I just needed someone with, you know, experience.”

I downed my drink and stood up, extending my hand to him. “It was good seeing you again, best of luck.”

A look of shock came over Vocachio, and there was more than a little anger there too. “No, Hal, please. You have to do this for me. You’ll make a killing I swear!”

“I asked for a good reason, ‘Chio. I can make money anywhere, on any job, and generally in a city that isn’t already crawling with whole divisions of soldiers. Sorry I couldn’t help. My advice to you is to find another way to get whatever it is you want from this man.”

Vocachio slumped; he was close to tears now. “I can’t write.”

“What?” Something in his statement made me sit back down.

“Hal, I’m not just a player, I’m a playwright. Or at least I was.” He scanned the room as he spoke, seeing nothing. “How She Does It, Mendol’s Folly, King Brand, Unias Falcon . . . they were tremendous successes, unbelievable. The master of my troupe even paid to have them printed in Saguntum. He sold every copy. The plays were performed at Revaltide in eight Imperial cities, Hal. Do you have any idea what that means?”

I did, and nodded for him to go on.

“And then it just . . . went away. I know what you are thinking — that’s normal, right? Poets always cry about that, about how hard their life is, while honest men break their backs hoeing rocky fields. But it’s gone, whatever was there that let me write Unias Falcon’s betrayed anguish, and Laefwine’s tragio-comic investigations of Mendol’s infidelities, is no longer in me. I need something to get it back.” Vocachio produced a handkerchief of fine white silk from his sleeve and wiped the sweat from his brow.

“And this Tofraet has that something in his collection?” I asked, somewhat incredulously.

“Parkrose’s quill, Hal. The very quill he used to pen his greatest tragedies. The greatest plays ever written by human hand, and that fat boor keeps it locked away behind glass! With that quill I know I can write anything. Do anything.” Vocachio finished with a flourish, and I believed him.

My better sense was demanding that I walk away, but that didn’t happen. As I said, I was powerless against the guy, my friend who had done wondrous things with his art and then had it all stolen away from him like a joke of the gods. We talked some more about it, and he fed me some pretty promising details of the place, and of his plan. On the surface it seemed very job-worthy, and I agreed to look into it further as soon as I finished my other business in Autrain Ford. So I forwent any temptations toward the ‘piss-yellow’ wine Vocachio had promised earlier — since neither of us seemed eager for more drink anyway — and bade him farewell. He repeated how grateful he was and gave directions to the hall where his company resided. With that I left, promising to see him the next day.

Outside night had deepened, and many lamps and torches had been allowed to gutter out. Autrain was now hitting that uglier phase that afflicts all revels, the second act of what begins as celebration and edges toward predation as the honest and the sane go home to their cozy lives while the badly drunk, and just plain bad, stay behind. They tended to be of a certain hungry type, a type unwilling to accept that the thing that would make their lives worthwhile -- that thing, whatever it was, that they’d always lacked -- wasn’t hidden just out of view around the next corner. This time I was one of them, and I walked back to the inn through the darkest, most secluded routes.

I said few people would make trouble in a city full of soldiers. The obvious exception to that is the soldiers themselves. Three inebriates approached me in a tight alley and the look was there; in each eye a lie. Three Imperial swordsmen, well-trained fighters -- not levies like the pike-fodder that comprise so much of the army these days -- moving toward me in a way that tried too hard to be non-threatening. I was feeling the drinks I had had with Vocachio -- and getting madder with myself by the minute for getting involved with his job -- and I suppose both things drove me to look for this fight. It was with something like relief that I punched the first Imperial in the neck before he could launch whatever counterfeit spiel he had planned to use on the next fool that crossed his path without a sword at his side.

He dropped with a gurgle, a big babyish sound, and I lashed a foot at the next closest as he tried to draw his sword, the toe of my hard-capped boot crunching into his knee. That drew a yelp, and he was practically blind and stupid with pain as I slapped the sword out of his hand and pushed him down, though not before one of his wildly flailing arms smacked me above the left eye. The third chose that moment to thrust at me, which I barely avoided, and my guts did a sickening lurch as I realized my drink-slowed reflexes weren’t exactly what I’d come to rely on for work like this.

“For this assault on His Majesty’s servants, you will die.” It was simply said, and I noticed for the first time that Imperial Number Three wasn’t just a drunken private but a gentleman, a scar-faced captain. He bore a cut-and-thrust sword rather than the soldier’s stabber, and held it point foremost in a duelist’s stance. I drew my knife, conscious of his formidable reach advantage. There was no way to get close to him. Instead I faked a throw at his head, wheeled, and ran away.

“Having fun last night? Street-sisters smack you around a bit?” Pug said in his annoyingly insinuating way. He looked at the cut above my eye and grinned, and I got the feeling a lot of people he had seen that morning had similar signs of the evening’s activities written on their faces in black, blue, and throbbing red. Unlike them I didn’t feed him a story, and I didn’t care to talk about it.

“What do you know about a guy named Calginus nam Tofraet?” I said.

We’d just concluded a tidy bit of business in the form of a brace of Zouvrenese ritual bronzes and a quaterweight of uncut amethysts I’d picked up in Cotterwold. Pug nested the bronzes in a crate full of raw cotton as we talked. I had no idea who had wanted them, and I didn’t much care, the seven thou in Imperial banknotes that now rested heavily in my pocket was all the explanation I had needed.

Pug took his time answering me, and I marveled at the delicate motions of his fat fingers as he worked with the antiques, his care and precision in exact proportion to the value of the objects he handled. “Tofraet? Minor collection, has some friends in the guild so he gets a pass, but strictly low-level stuff – small beer money. Why d’ya ask?”

“I’m entertaining a direct-buy contract on some of his collection.” I said.

Pug snorted, his jowls rippling in irritation. “Time waster.”

“It’s a case of extreme sentiment loosening the purse-strings. Any toes I need to worry about?” I asked. Stepping on toes was a big no if I wanted to do business again in Autrain. As Pug was my primary fence, I’d clear it with him.

“His friends and my friends ain’t the same friends, so step on whatever you like.” Pug placed the crate amongst a neat assortment of other packaged goods; probably a fortune in stolen material stacked up right there in his riverside office. “But now ain’t the time for house-knocking, Hal, or hadn’t you noticed both sides of the Ford are swarming with cheaps?”

Cheaps. Soldiers. I had noticed. “The festival will be done in three days, things will clear up by then?” I meant it as a statement, but the look on Pug’s face turned it into a question.

“You really don’t pay attention. You think the damn Holy Heroes came to town for the Quadrille? Not to mention two Imperial Legions. Their sensitives have smelled out something -- wild magic I hear -- tracked all over transriver to Autrain, and they are seriously worried about the source.” Pug was back at his desk now, big hands resting on his logbooks -- the tally of a thousand illicit fortunes.

“Another hedge wizard then, at least they’ll be distracted. Thanks for the ‘help-yourself’ on Tofraet.” I said as I got up to leave.

“Sure,” he said, shaking his head, “but watch out for the cheaps. Their bosses are all worried, and that makes them dangerous. Anything out of the ordinary is liable to set them off.”

But what could be more ordinary than a frustrated poet and a sentimental thief breaking into a man’s house to steal his pen?

O night, breakest from thy chilly brow
A white and perfect stone,
A jewel, a star, that even now
Hal risks himself to own.

That night, crouched on the steep roof of Tofraet’s manse, dressed in black, ears straining for sounds above, below, in the street, in the house -- now apparently was the time for Vocachio’s extemporized verse. Before I could stop him, he declaimed again, facing the dark vault of the sky, spilling his poesy onto the north wind.

The bravest man, and truest too,
To aid me in my quest.
To take a quill from a dullard who
Knows not to use it best.

And so we fellows both
A’thieving go,
And with the shadow’s oath
Will -- yowtch!

In fairness to Vocachio, the smack I dealt him was louder than his versifying, but I got my point across. For someone suffering from a lack of poetry he seemed positively overflowing in my presence and had hardly stopped venting doggerel all day as we had planned the break-in.

It seemed simple, but go tour a prison hulk or the Theoculator’s dungeons and every blighter in the place will tell you a story that begins ‘it seemed simple.’ Wouldn’t do to get complacent, wouldn’t do to waltz into the place spouting silly rhymes and wake up whatever house golem or guardian spirit or mean old caretaker with a boar spear we hadn’t known about. I put a finger over my lips and willed Vocachio to quiet.

Here was where we found out if the housemaid had done her part of the job. The roof had a trio of gabled windows, and we were at the one least visible from the main street. I pried at it with the shortbar until the lock popped, and had to put a restraining hand on an eager Vocachio while I vaned it for signs of ethereal flux.

The ethervane showed no movement, the needles just stirring faintly in the night breeze. I raised the window and held the vane at arms length in the dark room beyond. Nothing. Slipping inside, I rolled out of the band of moonlight that filtered through the window and crouched in a dark corner of the room, ethervane in one hand, shortbar in the other. Nothing happened.

I went back to the window, ran fingers along its margin, and found the resonator stones that were Tofraet’s security system. I could tell from the feel that they were dead, but ran the ethervane over them for good measure before putting it away and sticking my head back outside.

“Come on in.” I said.

As an actor Vocachio was fairly nimble, even still, clambering through the small window with his rapier at his side proved a less-than-elegant performance. I couldn’t help but smile and Vocachio, pride injured, fixed a venomous look on me as he got up off the floor.

“Why’d you bring that thing?” I said.

“If we get into a contest, Hal, I don’t plan on running away,” he said haughtily, dusting himself off with flicks of his handkerchief.

I’d made the mistake of telling him about my encounter the night before, and what to me seemed a perfectly natural tactic when faced with a skilled swordsmen bigger and better armed than I was, struck Vocachio as cowardly. I just shook my head then, and did the same in response to his latest dig. For all the burdens that life in the Guild foists on its members; the paranoia, the regulations, and, yes, sometimes even the guilt, I was thankful as hell honor wasn’t among them. We happily got along without it.

“Keep your hand on it and don’t let it bump anything.” I said, pointing to the sword. “Stay behind me and don’t you bump anything, or me. Or anything.” He nodded and we proceeded through the manse to find Tofraet’s study. The place was merchant-class respectable, nicely furnished, tidy, unostentatious. I’d seen a hundred homes just like it in a dozen cities, but for Vocachio the novelty of a break-in was fresh, and I had to drag him along lest he stop to investigate everything. There’s something arresting about passing through someone else’s private space uninvited, and a thief has to work at being able to move fast without pausing to take in every detail. It’s a natural impulse, as if there’s a deep need to make up for your violation of the place with a kind of respectful appreciation of its mundane wonders.

The dim glowstones, set here and there in the walls, were light enough, and Tofraet’s study was at the foot of the stairs on the second story. I swept the ethervane over the lock as a precaution, as sometimes a place like that has redundant systems. When I detected nothing I wedged my shortbar between the lock plate and the jamb and levered it open with a splintery crunch.

The best of the best was in there; an ironwood desk, expensively bound books in floor-to-ceiling shelves, a lizard-skin rug dyed a rich red, colorful Zouvrenese and Bahmainian tapestries hanging on the paneled walls. I scanned the room quickly, taking note of what I’d grab and what I’d have to think about, before I moved to the far corner shelf to look for the safe room that Vocachio’s housemaid friend had told him about.

Here is where the perverse thought always hits me on jobs like this: that the thing I don’t expect is about to happen. In truth, most jobs are routine. A decent amount of planning and foresight takes care of the short time you spend in the house; the real hassle is before and after, dealing with fences and Guild politics. But when nothing goes wrong on a job, a hybrid of guilt and paranoia creeps up on me, and spoils that otherwise perfect moment in which everything is about to go according to plan. That’s when I’m on edge, and when I expect to be jumped.

Little wonder then that, as I was searching for the hidden mechanism that would open the bookshelf to reveal Tofraet’s safe room, my nerves raw, a banshee screech behind me nearly shot my heart bursting up through my neck and out the top of my head.

“’Chio, ‘Chio, oh my sweet! My brave, sweet ‘Chio.” She was far shorter than her voice, stoutish, and could never again be mistaken for a maiden. She clung to a shocked Vocachio with all the brutal tenacity of a bear. “What… why this is a surprise, Astia. What are you doing here?” Vocachio stumbled for words, and looked helplessly at me as if to say this couldn’t be helped. I flashed him a look of my own, one that said ‘sort this out, or I will.’

“Well, dear. I came to help. I had to deactivate the harmony stones of course.” Astia said, oblivious to our irritation.

“But, my little luscious flower, you didn’t have to stay here once the alarum was off. I mean, it would be best if you didn’t get involved . . .”

I turned my back on them, and resumed my search. Finding the catch I swung the bookshelf out and away, revealing the room I’d sought. Shelf-lined, narrow like a vault, and not exactly bursting with wealth. Maybe Tofraet had fallen on hard times, or maybe he bragged about riches he’d never had, but to lay eyes on his private horde was to understand why he wasn’t on the top of any Guild lists. I busied myself with what was worth grabbing, while the sounds of Vocachio and his paramour arguing sharpened behind me.

In a slim hard case of lacquered teak was Parkrose’s quill. I slipped quill and case into my pocket.

“You beast! Oh, you beastly man!” Astia shrieked as I emerged from Tofraet’s stash. She was pummeling Vocachio with her plump little fists, and he was fending her off with a combination of artful pleadings and arm blocks. Before I could intervene, she broke from Vocachio and ran shrilling down the stairs.

“What the hell did you do?” I hissed.” Stop her before she brings the watch down on us.” Vocachio flashed me an embarrassed grin and turned to race after her. I pilfered a few more trinkets and stuffed them into my bag before moving quickly onto the landing.

“Leave it ‘Chio, come on,” I shouted downstairs. From my vantage I could see the front door had been flung wide by Astia’s flight from the house, and already I could hear a tumult in the street outside -- the shriek of the housemaid and the answering calls of men keyed to respond to any disturbance.

Vocachio appeared at the bottom of the steps, face red. “She’s out. Holy hells Hal, I’m sorry about --“

“Not now! Get yourself up here and let’s go.” Looking down at him brought me close to rage, but I dampened it and tried to think instead of the best possible escape routes once we were back on the roof.

“There’s a better way. Down here a door to the back lane. We can bar the door and they’ll have to go all the way around the block to get us.”

I shouted a terse disagreement, but Vocachio countered with disarming certainty. My instincts were to go upwards in a situation like this, never down. But we didn’t have the time to argue any further, and I couldn’t just leave the poor sap. So with a curse I took the stairs and ran with him to the back of the house just as men wearing the white sash of Autrain’s city watch came charging through the front door.

“Trust me,” Vocachio panted, leading us through a long dining room and into a cold pantry. “Astia used to come out through here to meet me on the riverside street. Just down here.”

The guardsmen were roaring after us, clattering through the place with reckless eagerness. Vocachio and I sped down the stairs and stumbled our way through an unlit basement. “Ah, it must be in here,” he said, leading me past a heavy door and into a vaulted storage room. I quickly slammed the door and we both dragged the heaviest of the casks and crates to bar the way.

After the fifth or sixth crate, I paused to catch my breath. “That should hold them for a bit. Where’s the backdoor?” I asked.

There wasn’t one.

Vocachio lit a lamp and we looked in disbelief at the unbroken plastered walls. The place was crowded with stores and sundries, but it didn’t take long to see that there was no other way out of the room. “I swear Hal, there is a backdoor somewhere out of here. It . . . it must be in another room.” There was nothing left of the stage performer in his voice, he sounded instead like a condemned man. The watchmen’s shouts outside had turned to heavy bangings -- it wouldn’t be long before they found something to ram the door from its hinges.

“Here,” I growled, throwing him Parkrose’s quill in its little case, “write out your last testament because that’s all the good it’ll do you now.”

Despite the situation, despite the certainty of our doom, Vocachio savored his first look at the quill, holding it like a sacred object. Which, in his profession, I suppose it was. I looked away, afraid the unconcealed ecstasy on his face might tempt me to break his jaw. “Thank you Hal, you can’t know what this means to me. I only wish . . .”

“Don’t speak to me,” I said, and he heard that I meant it.

To my infinite surprise and irritation Vocachio busied himself with his new treasure, quickly preparing a weak ink with lampblack and oil, and scrawling verse on the white wall of our prison while I worked to strengthen the barricade. The sounds from without had died down to the occasional murmur, and I knew the guards had sent some of their number to fetch reinforcements -- and more than likely a stout beam with which to force the door. While I ran over impossible possibilities -- perhaps one of those casks held black powder or a powerful acid, perhaps there was a way to hide within the room that the guards could never detect -- with these nonsense thoughts of a desperate man tumbling around inside my skull, Vocachio mumbled over his rhymes and limericks. Most of his creations revolved around questioning the masculinity of one Calginus nam Tofraet, whose house this was. Rather in bad taste, I thought. “Is that how you want to be remembered?” Vocachio just looked at me and, without intending to, the both of us laughed.

“What will they do to us, Hal?” Vocachio asked, growing suddenly serious.

I frowned, produced a silver brooch from my pocket and held it in the lamplight. “Hang us for thieves. Me they’ll probably torture first unless the Guild pays them a kindness -- that’s what the clean-death bribe is called -- which they probably won’t do.” I flung the little bauble against the far wall where it hit with a brittle smack. “All for a bag of pasteboard jewelry and polished brass.”

Vocachio made as if to speak, then thought better of it. Taking the quill in his black-smudged hand he wrote on the wall in his neat, expressive script:

For me the brave man dies
And fate won’t hear my cries.
And all I’d ask forevermore
Would have this wall become a door.
To free the man who gave his all
To help a friend arrest his fall,
And gained the thing t’would save my life,
But earned for him the noose and knife.

“Not exactly Parkrose, but the sentiment is genuine.” Vocachio said with a sad smile. “Hal, I realize this is entirely my doing, and my regret is --“

But the patter of falling plaster behind him caused Vocachio to turn, his words forgotten. As we watched cracks snaked across the wall around his stanza. Plaster flaked off the wall in fat sheets and crumbled to the floor as both of us moved in to investigate what neither of us had dared to hope for. There, on the bare stone of the wall, was the clear outline of a door.

“You may be the luckiest man alive,” I said, though I think the words were barely audible. There was something about that moment that demanded a certain silent reverence.

“All that time do you think? I mean, a secret door was there? And my scribbling just upset the plaster?” Vocachio asked, more to himself than me. He shook his head in disbelief. “It seems . . . completely ridiculous.”

But I didn’t waste any time with that. Using the shortbar I got the door moving, and it pivoted easily on oiled hinges despite its weight, for it was constructed of the same dressed stone as the wall itself. I’d never seen a door like it, but the rush of crisp night air that hit me after our confinement banished any thoughts of strangeness from my mind. We were free.

Free for the moment. We hurried outside into the narrow dark street running between the back of the manses of Tofraet’s block and the disused piers clinging to the shore of the Yendez; the river slinking south in a cool dark band a mere stone’s throw away. The sounds of activity from the house’s front seemed loud enough for an army. We had awakened the city, and it wouldn’t be long before every cheap in Autrain Ford converged on us. I motioned for Vocachio to follow, and ran south.

I suppose they’d been waiting for us, watching the back in case we found some escape. The first had his arms around me from behind before I’d spotted them and I smashed an elbow into his face, but he tightened his hold. I bent sharply forward at the waist and reached between my own legs, grabbing his right ankle in both hands and levering it up while throwing my weight backwards. We crashed to the ground -- he absorbing most of the impact -- and I jerked his overstretched leg in one quick motion toward me and was rewarded with a fibrous pop. I rolled off him and left him screaming on the damp stones of the street.

Vocachio had two men down by the time I joined him. I cracked the skull of another with the shortbar, kneed a man in the gut harder than he liked, and disarmed a third with a smack to the wrist. The rest, maybe five, lost a bit of their zeal then, and Vocachio -- gentlemanly honor forgotten for the time -- followed my lead and fled into the nearest alley.

“You run like an old woman,” I teased before I noticed the blood.

“Outer thigh, s’alright,” he mumbled, “guy had a good riposte.”

The guards had collected themselves and followed close behind, and there was no time to bind Vocachio’s wound. The close-sided alley sloped down in a slick curve towards the river, and as I ran I undid the thong that held tight the bag of trinkets I’d lifted from Tofraet’s manse and scattered them into the street. A half turn in the alley later, and I heard excited shouts behind us followed by the frustrated barking of orders. Tofraet’s junk had purchased us a few seconds more.

I had lost the shortbar in the scuffle, and so forced a nearby door with a kick that splintered it from its hinges. A useful distraction. Casting around for some place to hide, I saw a low retaining wall between two collapsed boatsheds close to the river’s edge and made for it, Vocachio limping along as best he could with my support. Barely more than waist high, of crumbling, algae-slimed river stones, it was the best cover we could find.

I helped him over, and then vaulted the wall just as the guardsmen spilled into the street behind us, their torches throwing orange phantoms over the wet stones around them. I tore off Vocachio’s thin half-jacket and wadded it up for use as a compress, bidding him to hold it tight against his wound.

We were huddled amongst the detritus of the river, which caressed the stones not a leg’s-length away from our position, and around us up and down the water ranged crumbling slips and docks once used for all manner of watercraft. Our best course seemed to steal a boat, if we could find one, and make for the other side. The town watch had dispersed to search the street – though many had charged through the door I had forced and were searching that building in earnest -- but it was only a matter of time before one of them noticed our shadowed wall. Vocachio busied himself with his handkerchief and some rhythmic muttering, while I crawled to the river’s edge to try and spot a suitable craft.

To the south lights shimmered over the river, seeming to support a dark mass. It was a skiff rowed against the current, spilling torchlight. I prepared to flatten myself as best I could in the shadows.

But the skiff had slowed and begun a clumsy turn, her overladen hull listing as she came about, and soon she was moored at a jetty less than a block from our position. Once aground a dozen men clambered out, torchlight glinting on their helmets and hilts. More cheaps for the search.

“Hope you don’t mind getting your feet wet,” I said as I helped Vocachio up. I whispered my plan and Vocachio nodded, then unbuckled his sword belt and handed it to me. My instinct was to reject it, for I’m no swordsman, but I realized that if it came to a fight neither of us would be running away, so I shrugged and put it on. Adjusting it at my side, I noticed the grip was wrapped in smooth white cloth.

“My handkerchief,” Vocachio grinned. “Don’t take it off. The wire-wrap is slippery in this weather.” Reaching for me, he supported his weight on my shoulder and leaned in close. “Don’t take it off.” He said again and, with one last look at the street, we both moved out into the shallow water of the Yendez.

The water was cold -- ice up to our knees -- and the smooth rocks beneath our feet precarious. We moved slowly, deliberately, leaving the water where we could and sticking to the shallowest parts when some outthrust pier or foundation forced us back into the river. Ahead, a few torches guttered at our destination, and the voices of watchmen bounced over the water to meet us. As we reached the landing I gestured to Vocachio what he was to do. I then slid up onto the stones of the jetty along the leaning wall of a shed, staying in the deepest shadows. I drew Vocachio’s sword, the silk wrapping cool against my hand, took a deep breath, and charged.

There were four of them, cocky, boisterous, enjoying the evening’s excitement with their friends. I hit them without warning; darting rapier through flesh with a skill alien to me and, between one breath and the next, four men fell dead on the stones.

Vocachio had paused in his limping run toward the boat, and I saw a kind of satisfaction in his face such as the look a playwright might wear at a fine performance of his work. I turned to join him.

But the sounds of boots on stone echoed behind me, and a commanding voice cried out. “Halt! Stand down, and yield to His Majesty’s justice!” The sound of steel leaping from scabbard filled the night.

I turned. There, at the head of a dozen well-armed men, was the Imperial captain I’d fled from the night before. A sneer distorted his features, and the look of recognition was in his eye. “I had not dared hope we’d meet again, cur. Match my steel and on my word none of my men shall interfere.” And with this he lifted his blade in challenge.

My instincts again were to run, to scoop a handful of pebbles into his face and disappear into the night, but instead I veered at him with impossible speed and struck.

He twisted out of the way, and the duel commenced. We ranged across the stones, my footing sure and fluid, his more cautious. But he could not match my speed; a swiftness I myself could hardly follow. I pierced him in arms and body, and with each thrust his parries grew more ragged, more circular, until at last he was bating at my blade as a man bitten and envenomed might swat at the cobra as it strikes him again and again. His men gasped as I feinted low to draw his cumbrous block, then launched the needle-tip of Vocachio’s blade upwards into his eye. He fell dead upon the slick stones, his soldiers standing in awe and dread of what they had seen.

“Don’t,” I croaked, panting from the unhuman exertion. I swept my gaze over them and raised the quivering and crimsoned steel between us. “Please, move away. Just go!” It must have awakened something in them, for they rushed in on me like a tide.

And like a tide they broke, rolled back, receded. I did not count the dead as I ran to meet Vocachio in the stolen skiff, and we two slipped away into the current and toward the opposite shore.

“You cannot know what this means to me, Hal. You’ve given me back my life.” Vocachio embraced me as we said our partings outside the hall where his troupe lodged. It had taken an hour or more of creeping through dark streets to get there but, beyond a few dodged patrols, our way was uneventful.

“Just do me one favor. Don’t ever put me in one of your plays.” I said and he laughed, bade me farewell, and told me his troupe was bound for the Seven Towns for Revaltide, and that if I were in the vicinity I was always welcome. He bowed with a flourish, turned neatly, and limped up the stairs to the hall; scabbard, belt, and blade in one hand, the other guiding his injured leg.

I wondered how welcome I would be when he found out I had stolen Parkrose’s quill from his pocket with our parting embrace.

I had five days to think about that, to weigh the guilt I felt against the danger of leaving the quill with Vocachio. Five days of hiding out, moving around, keeping my head down. By the time I went to see Pug I was hoping Vocachio’s troupe was gone, hoping he wasn’t fool enough to scour the city looking for me. Looking for the quill.

“Worthless.” Pug confirmed with a snort as he tossed the quill back to me in its little case.

“It’s not enchanted, then? No other properties?” Pug just rolled his eyes. I had ethervaned the quill, ran a few other simple tests on it, even tried writing with it to see if I could do as Vocachio had done. Pug had done much more, and found nothing. “What about as an object of interest?”

Pug laughed at that, jowls jiggling. “Even if you could establish provenance -- which you can’t -- there’s still a big flaw with the idea that Parkrose ever used that. Because Parkrose, fussy old coot that he was, never wrote a damn thing. He dictated, Hal, and I can’t imagine his secretaries’ quills command much on the black market.” “How’d you know that?” I asked, not really caring. Pug knew his business.

“It’s my business to know,” he said dismissively. “You’ve wasted your time here, Hal.

Worse than that, I thought. Later that day, my last at the Ford, I sat outside Pug’s office beneath a freestanding arch of stone -- the prop of some massive old bridge lost to time – and watched the Yendez slide by. I snapped the quill in half and dropped the pieces onto the white silk handkerchief at my side. Vocachio’s handkerchief, the one he’d wrapped around the grip of his rapier, upon which he’d written with his own blood:

No hero by intent,
Instead a thief.
But Hal the gods have sent
To end my grief.
To him my bloody words have lent
The force of my belief.
Blinding speed, strength of steel,
Borrowed skill for this ordeal.
To slay our foes and strike them dead,
To kill and kill till all are fled,
And this he’ll do without relent,
‘Til both of us our blood is spent,
Or sword and rhyme have won relief.

A simple rhyme -- a game to him -- and I’d butchered men for the sake of it. ‘To kill and kill,’ a nice, round sound it made, a pleasing rhythm that flowed from the poet in the blink of an eye -- without thought -- and which I had had to obey. Which I have to bear the guilt of. On the jetty I had killed not only those who struck at me, but those who hadn’t run fast enough, those who pleaded, those who lay helpless on the stones. All for the sake of a rhyme.

I placed a stone in the middle of the bloody handkerchief, knotted it up, and threw it into the river. Quill and verse disappeared beneath the Yendez. I hope Vocachio never finds another way to unlock whatever it is that’s inside him, hope he doesn’t find faith in his words ever again.

“By the way,” I had said to Pug before I left his office, and Autrain Ford itself, behind. “The cheaps will be peeling off soon, their quarry moves. Expect them in the Seven Towns for winter.”

“The wild magic, huh? How’d you find that out?” Pug asked, interest lighting up his pig eyes.

“Your business is business, mine is secrets. See you around,” I said. Pug shrugged, hooked a fat finger into his ledger, and opened it to a blank page.