Bold as Brass Read online

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  "We need to talk, brother."

  "We need to talk, brother."

  Odds and Ogham, thought Samir. The last people in Faerun that he wanted to see now crowded his anvil.

  Davin and Keggar were the armorsmith guildmasters for Neverwinter. Davin was lean and coarse, with two gold teeth proclaiming a fight lost years ago. Keggar had once been powerful, but had grown fat and flabby. Neither had touched an anvil in years. They were too busy "organizing". Samir had no desire to be organized, but his turn had come.

  "As you know, Samir," drawled Davin, gold teeth winking, "Neverwinter's becoming famous all over the North for its crafts. These new waterclocks and lamps -"

  "I know what we make," interrupted Samir. "Cut to the chase. I've already said, I'm not interested in joining your little scheme."

  Things were peacefully slow on a Wednesday afternoon, which is why the two guildmasters had come "recruiting". Neverwinter proper rose at Samir's left hand, twisted streets and corniced towers and tiny shingled roofs looking much like a clockwork toy itself. Below the city wall, on a flat before fields and forest began, sat the combined marketplace and stockyards. Horses pranced in corrals, a burro turned a cider press, women stitched saddles and giggled. The autumn air was scented with manure and sawdust, apple cider and pumpkin bread and, by Samir's forge, hot metal and rust and smoking linseed oil.

  "It's not a scheme," wheezed Keggar, crossing fat arms over his chest. "We're going to make Neverwinter the grandest armory on the Sword Coast. All we offer is a chance to join our brotherhood and make Neverwinter proud. Make something of yourself too."

  "Make myself a slave? Make you two rich?" Samir picked up his chin, though he was a head shorter and slighter than both smiths. With a thatch of hair always falling in his eyes, Samir looked like a muskrat who'd crawled out of the Neverwinter River. Despite butterflies in his belly, Samir's anger rose fit to choke him. "Did the hard hands of your brotherhood break both of Ashon's arms? Did your spirit push Kuri down those stairs that night it rained?"

  "Fell things fall to unlucky people," said Davin evenly. "But smiths who come work on our projects -"

  "I've got work!" rapped Samir. "You think I idle away the afternoon like you two? Look at that pile!"

  The guildmasters glanced at the work to be done. A stew pot with a broken ear. An axe with a cracked face. A militia captain's shin guard with a snapped cinch ring. And more. Davin snorted. "This rubbish belongs in the city midden."

  "It's nothing fancy," insisted Samir, "but it's tools people need to work. You know what work is, don't you?"

  "We know." Keggar sucked air into his fat frame. "We work hard to improve our lot -"

  "Then go to. Leave me be. I'm content."

  Picking up his hammer, Samir meant to dismiss them, but the two guildmasters lingered, then glanced around. Other than the saddlemakers, no one paid attention to their discussion. Without asking, Davin plucked a pair of tongs from the loops around Samir's anvil.

  "Hoy!" said the smith. "Hands off -"

  Fast for a fat man, Keggar grabbed Samir's thatch of unruly hair and yanked. Savagely the smith was whirled around, tipped backward, and craned across his own anvil. When he squawled, Davin caught his tongue with filthy black tongs, cruel iron pinching flesh.

  "Enough talk, Samir!" Davin twisted the tongs to make the smith howl. "You'll work for us on our projects at the wages we specify, or you won't work at all! Got it?"

  "And just to make sure ..." Leaving the smith pinned over his anvil, Keggar picked up a bucket of rusty water and doused Samir's portable forge in a whooping geyser of steam. Then he took a hammer to the waiting work, smashing pots and tools and armor and bridles.

  Three of the saddlestitchers, friends of Samir's, came creeping to see if they could help, but Davin waved them off. When the destruction was complete, the two guildmasters banged Samir's head on his anvil until he saw stars. Davin hissed, "Pack your paltry irons to our shop before nightfall, Sir Armorsmith. We've got work for you!"

  Flopping Samir to the dirt with a kick, the conspirators marched off.

  The saddlestitchers helped him rise, twittering like birds. Samir groaned from a swollen tongue and battered head, but was more pained to see his customers' much-needed tools and cookware shattered beyond repair.

  "That's vile, Samir! Those bullies can't do that!" Crafters themselves, the women were wroth. "I'd appeal to our aldermen! Or a judge, even! Or the lord himself!"

  "That's been tried." Rubbing his aching head, Samir cast about at his fallen anvil, soggy forge, and scattered tools. "Those two have salted bribes in the highest tiers of the city to push their scheme through. By the time any honest official got around to investigating, it'd be too late ...

  "No, I'm afraid there's only one course left me ..."

  Far far away, across distances no human could measure, another armorsmith was equally fretful.

  Gisnervi loomed over ten feet tall, weighed a ton, and boasted skin the color of a boiled lobster. He looked thin and corded as wrought iron, and was just as strong. Blunt horns jutted down from his brow and tusks up from his jaw. The only hair on his body was a wispy goatee that he tugged as he worried. He wore a loincloth and singlet of blue-green silk, for it was hot here, and on his chest hung a fretwork wheel, the badge of a brassworker.

  Today Gisnervi wished he'd adopted some other profession. He bobbled a cloth-wrapped bundle and almost dropped it.

  Past a hanging tapestry, music tumpa-thumped. In the throne room the highest-high of the City of Brass watched a troupe of lillends dance. Waiting in a servant's alcove, Gisnervi peeked through a gap to see the elemental beings artfully weave impossible loops in the air while singing and playing harps. Taking advantage of the high vaulted ceiling, they zipped above and even through the flames of an ever-burning pyre, centerpiece of the hall and symbol of City of Brass, the hub of the Plane of Fire. The lillends' rainbow wings and mermaid tails swooped and soared in perfect time, mesmerizing as their heartbreaking and incomprehensible songs. The audience was several hundred of the city's highest caste, all guests of the Grand Sultan. Lesser sultans, beys, maliks, pashas, emirs and their sprawling families oohed and ahhed and applauded the clever dancers.

  Gisnervi wished the lillends would play all night and sing everyone to sleep. Then he might slip quietly home -

  "You! What do you here?"

  "Eh?" Gisnervi turned, and backstepped.

  Two efreet seemed puddled from molten bronze, and indeed fire licked from their mouths when they talked. Glowering, forbidding, the awesome figures wore loincloths of hippogriff hide that included the faces and beaks, one yellow-brown, one spotted roan. The hides were the only way to tell them apart, for they were akin as brown-glass bottles.

  "I asked," gurgled the first efreeti like a volcano guttering, "what you do here? Are you some assassin bent on slaughtering the grand sultan's family?"

  "What?" Gisnervi's black eyes bulged. Even he, used to hammering hot brass, broke a sweat, for the tiny alcove was overwhelmed by the two bronze efreet, who towered fourteen feet and stretched half as wide. "No, venerable effendi! I - Assassination? Me? I am a humble brassworker! I wait only to present this gift to our lord, or rather Lord Minjan's great-grandson, Prince Pikki -"

  "Give it here. We must inspect." The bronze efreeti snatched the bundle from Gisnervi's hands. Unfolding green and gold velvet, he held up a breastplate hardly bigger than a supper dish. It was artfully sculpted to match a boy's chest, with muscles and ribs exaggerated, but too Gisnervi's subtle artistry had captured a cloud across the bosom with a lightning bolt splitting the brisket to the navel. The cuirass shone brilliant as gold from days of hand-polishing, though the bronze efreet's fat thumbs were marring the g
loss.

  "It's traditional in the grand sultan's family to award a boy-child armor and sword on his seventh birthday," went on Gisnervi. "Other artisans contribute the helm and sword and greaves, but I was lucky enough to make the breastplate. I can weave in protection from elements, you see. The boy's mother worries about him catching cold. I call it Storm Armor. See the clouds ... Uh, could you not slobber so?"

  Ignoring the comment, the first efreet handed the armor to his companion behind, then clapped hands on Gisnervi and spun him around. Whapping hot hands up and down the brassworker's body, the bronze efreet mumbled, "Everyone must be searched. Plots are afoot. One never knows what mischief might befall our beloved grand sultan ..."

  Poked and prodded, Gisnervi wondered at this indignity. He'd been searched by palace guards and a finicky djinn when he arrived. Then he'd been plunked in this alcove to wait, for hours, as the grandson's birthday unfolded in stages like a play. When would ...

  "All's well. Here's your toy." Whirled back around, the brass breastplate was shoved into Gisnervi's red hands. With no apology, the two behemoths disappeared around a corner.

  "Toy?" Cursing under his breath, Gisnervi buffed off fingerprints with the velvet wrapping. "Barbarian behemoths! Why would the palace employ -"

  "Are you ready? It's almost time." A djinni breezed into the alcove. He was tall, bald, proud, and elegantly dressed, but his gold collar marked a slave. He glided to the gap in the tapestry as if floating. "Once the music stops, comes a pause, then a drum and trumpet flourish -"

  "I remember, I remember." Grousing, Gisnervi folded the breastplate in the fancy cloth. "Why didn't you warn your ham-handed hulks not to smudge up gifts -"

  "Hulks? What are you talking about?" Abruptly the music blared a tumply-ump-wham-clash. "It's time! Go!"

  Gisnervi was propelled through the gap into the throne room. For the first time, he could see the entire chamber, and gawked. Vast and round as a mountaintop, the room was encircled by high arched windows that overlooked the grandeur of the City of Brass. All around the compass winked onion-domed minarets and reedy towers roofed with facets of polished brass. In tier after tier descended magnificent buildings spun from glass in rainbow colors, or chased with silver like ivy vines, or carved of stone into fretwork delicate as spiderwebs. Beyond the teeming city boiled and bubbled seas and lakes of liquid magma spilled like drops of brass amid a black and gray landscape with its own stark beauty. The savage landscape was lit by no sun, but rather by the gentle light of a sky white as a hummingbird's throat.

  One glimpse was all the brassworker got, for by stepping past the tapestry he became the focus of a thousand eyes waiting for amusement. Sweat popped from Gisnervi's boiled-red brow, and he fought the urge to twiddle his chin beard. Sucking wind, the brassworker paced toward an ornate throne boasting as many tiers as the city it ruled. The Grand Sultan was a towering four-horned efreet with skin like black glass wrapped in gorgeous fabrics, stern and forbidding, though his craggy hand rested gently on the head of his great-grandson. Wiggling in his seat of honor, Prince Pikki positively glowed with honey-colored skin and a giant grin. Beside him were heaped treasures from the richest dynasties of the empire, but the boy already wore his most prized possessions, a brass helmet, greaves, baldric and scabbard, and he held aloft a jeweled scimitar. Behind Pikki sat his beaming mother, guest of honor among the sultans' thirty-four wives. Packed around the room, hundreds of efreet guests in every color of the rainbow watched in silence.

  Praying he didn't stumble, Gisnervi marched past the eternal pyre with its hissing white-hot coals and stopped twenty feet shy of the throne. The brassworker had mentally rehearsed a speech during weeks of burnishing the breastplate, but now under the gaze of hundreds of elite efreet the flowery phrases evaporated from his mind like sweat off an anvil. Gisnervi squeaked, "Bountifulness and Grandboy Sultan, present I the gift present of the Storm Armor!"

  With a fumbling flourish, the brassworker whisked off the green and gold cloth and held the breastplate high. Hundreds oohed in appreciation. Pride trilled through Gisnervi's lean frame. Released by his grandsire's hands, Prince Pikki clasped the breastplate, eliciting a laugh from the crowd, then remembered his manners.

  "Thank you, masterful armorsmith," piped Pikki, "for this most gracious and glorious gift!"

  "You're welcome, your majesty. May the armor protect you both in combat and inclement weather." Gisnervi was thrilled by the prince's praise, for he'd toiled day and night for months to hand-tool the cuirass and enchant its charm. He got another thrill when the boy's mother nodded regally.

  Slaves came forward with a ready-made harness. Pikki squirmed with delight as slaves hitched the Storm Armor across the boy's chest, then hung his baldric and resettled his helmet to perfection.

  Finally fully equipped for battle, Pikki swished his scimitar in the air as if beheading a dragon. Laughter and applause answered. Gisnervi stepped back as the boy pranced and danced to cut down imaginary foes, shouting challenges and threats in a fine display.

  "My grandson is happy." A rumble like distant thunder shook Gisnervi's bones. The fierce Grand Sultan sported a tiny twinkle in his eye. "We shall remember this favor, brassworker."

  Rapture! thought Gisnervi, but remembered to bow his head humbly. If he could be appointed an Official Armorer to the Grand Sultan's Court, benefits unbound would flow to his feet! Finally he'd gain the respect and honor he'd slaved for. He could build a fine shop, hire apprentices, custom-fit the greatest warriors of the realm, grow wealthy, marry -

  "Ho, djinni, kneel before me!" Watched by hundreds, Prince Pikki stamped around the great hissing pyre, stabbing the air. "Take that, colossus! Surrender your treasure! I, Grand Sultan Pikki, command -"

  Abruptly the boy's antics stopped. The room caught its breath. White-faced, stricken as if sick, Pikki touched his breastplate -

  - and pitched flat on his face.

  Consternation. Women wailed, men shouted, guards raced, the Grand Sultan roared. Trotting to Pikki's side, the court physician felt beneath the boy's jawline and pronounced, "The prince is dead!"

  In stunned silence, every eye turned to Gisnervi. Flabbergasted, black eyes bulging, the brassworker raised two skinny arms as he told the room, "But - I didn't -"

  "ASSASSIN!" roared a hundred voices.

  Djinn and efreet guards cannoned into one another to kill Gisnervi. Slaves in gold collars dreamt of freedom as they plunged headlong to grab the criminal. Mothers, fathers, princes, emirs, and dozens more descended in a wave to tear the brassworker apart for murdering the beloved prince.

  Backed against the Grand Sultan's flaming pyre, symbol of the Plane of Fire, Gisnervi took the only escape route possible.

  Whirling, he dived headlong into white-hot coals.

  Far away, in a cooler place ...

  "Well, things can't much worse, noble ass."

  Samir, armorsmith of Neverwinter, knelt on a flat rock to sip from a pond. Beside him, a donkey hung with clanking panniers slurped noisily with hairy lips. The water was cold and, stained by peat, fruity.

  Thirst quenched, Samir cast about. Secluded, the vale was surrounded by pebbly hills stippled with gorse and heath and scruffy trees. Quiet except for the chaff of bluebirds arguing in a red pine. Lonely, because it was far from the beaten path.

  "We're lost, Dragonbreath. We verge on The Crags, methinks. Nowhere near Longsaddle. I'd have sworn after Thundertree we followed The Gibdraw, but we must have veered along the Morgur. So here we be. Nothing to eat, only water to drink, late in the season so we'll suffer frost tonight - Eh?"

  From beneath the peat-dark water, a slit-eyed slit-nose face squinted up at the armorsmith. And slowly grinned, friendly as a shark.

  "Spirit of the Serpent!" Samir rocked back on his heels too late.

  Claws like fishhooks erupted from the water and snagged Samir's leather apron. Another scaly arm burst free, splashing water in his eyes and snagging his head. Spluttering, trying to wrench loose, Sa
mir saw three craggy forms trailing thick serrated tails explode from the pond and jump on his screaming donkey. Dragonbreath was plunged stumbling into the pond in a tremendous gout of water just as Samir was dragged in face-first.

  Flailing, thrashing, kicking did no good. Samir tried to drag his smithing hammer from his belt, but hands cold as a granite statue's crushed his knuckles. Belatedly Samir conserved his air, though his lungs shrieked already. He dropped like an anchor, sunk as if by krakens into the depths. Through a blur of tea-stained water and red haze, Samir saw the donkey churn bubbles with his furious kicking. The smith wondered which of them would drown first ...

  With a shock, Samir's head broke water. Spitting and snorting, he sucked air greedily, but got no rest. Clutched by brawny slimy paws, he was toted through semi-darkness like a chicken to market. Light filtered from cracks high up. The ground was not dirt or stone, but large squares of polished marble thick with dust. Squinting about, Samir glimpsed a vase-shaped column and a dark doorway.

  Ruins, he marvelled. Well, why not? The Neverwinter Woods were littered with ancient castles and old temples like the Tower of Twilight, though no one ever found any treasure. Likely he wouldn't find any either, for these ruins were infested by lizardfolk.

  Near seven feet, mottled green and brown, with thick lashing tails, the lizards had underslung jaws riddled with snaggly teeth and eyes baleful as a basilisk's. As they passed through a shaft of dust-moted sunshine, Samir saw his donkey being carried by four stocky warriors. From the way the beast's legs splayed and tongue lolled, the smith knew poor Dragonbreath was dead, either drowned or neck-broke. Trembling, the smith wondered if the donkey were the lucky one.

  "I say, friends." Hacking water, Samir tried talking. Certainly he had no other hope. "I didn't know this little vale was your home. I'm sorry if we intruded. Uh, I don't have anything worth your while. You can keep my donkey if you like ..." Lugged through pitch-black corridors and chambers and halls, Samir jabbered like a magpie. If the lizardfolk understood a word, they paid no heed.