Bold as Brass Read online

  Smoky light showed ahead, along with shrill carols and hoots of triumph. Hunters returning home with prey, Samir gulped. He was fetched into a large room lined by more columns and floored by hexagonal flagstones. The soaring ceiling was arched like a cathedral. Light obscured by dust and smoke streamed in at regular intervals, so somewhere up there windows poked free of dirt and brush. Who'd have believed a palace lay buried under these scruffy hills?

  Samir was dropped on stone so hard his head rang. A dozen lizardy children, or hatchlings, scurried to see the captive. Coughing pond water, Samir was prodded, pinched, and hair-yanked by small claws. Then bigger talons brutally shucked his long shirt, belt, leather apron, hammer, pouches, and boots, leaving Samir as naked as the scaly children. Skinny as a skinned rabbit, though his shoulders and forearms were knotty from slinging a hammer, Samir shivered and gasped as webbed toes trod his hands and feet. Bonds of green rawhide were cinched to his wrists and ankles, then he was dragged taut as a drumhead and lashed 'round his body to a thick pole smelling of charcoal. The ominous reek gave Samir a hint of his destination. With lizard offspring capering and croaking, Samir was lugged like a dead deer to a long firepit where flagstones had been pried up. Samir's pole was plunked into two uprights. Lizards raked coals, tossed on kindling and broken tree branches, then blew up flames. In seconds Samir had dried over a crackling, growing fire.

  Trying to stifle panic, Samir wriggled against his bonds. No escape there. He squinted through rising smoke around the fire pit, but saw only grinning fanged faces. One big warrior licked his lips with a lolling pink tongue. Praying to an assortment to gods, Samir told each one, "I'm sorry I ran away from Neverwinter! I had no choice! I couldn't fight the guildmasters! If I'd gotten to Longsaddle and bided my time, maybe Davin and Keggar would fall out like thieves and the guild could get back on its feet ..."

  No ghostly voice echoed in his skull, no lightning struck the lizardfolk, no heavenly being descended with a flaming sword on white wings. Samir sneezed as smoke made his nose run. Fire made his naked skin tingle.

  "Roasted on a spit over a slow fire," the smith mumbled bitterly. "Food for lick-lipping lizards. My luck. I wish I'd never said things couldn't get worse."

  Samir grit his teeth rather than shriek. If these warriors valued bravery, they might cut him loose. For now, they only poked him, valuing tenderness. A trio of lizards dragged in a tree and broke off branches thick as Samir's leg, then piled them on the fire. As ominous snaps and crackles arose and flames licked at Samir's skin, he screamed. A chorus of grunts and chuckles answered.

  This was a horrid death, thought Samir wildly. Fire searing his body, smoke wracking his throat, ashes scouring his eyes, so much pain he screamed again -

  - and the earth cracked -

  - and the firepit dropped away.

  This was the last time, thought Gisnervi, he'd dive headlong into a raging inferno.

  As he swam through fire, the efreeti imagined he'd sunk through the palace cellars and passed from the City of Brass altogether, because the bed of coals went down and down as if to the bottom of the world. Certainly this ocean of flame must encompass every fire in existence. Gisnervi had swum through red-orange coals for hours. Ashes made his eyes gritty, his nose and ears stuffy, and his mouth foul as a dead crocodile. Now that terror had ebbed, and he was unlikely to be ripped apart by an angry mob, he was bored, and hot, and itchy, and tired of swimming.

  Further, Gisnervi was lost. He wasn't even sure he still dwelt on the Plane of Fire. Passing a pair of salamanders, creatures half-efreeti and half-serpent stippled with prickers, he'd asked directions. At home in their element, the selfish beggars just sneered and sailed on. Gisnervi had tried to catch a fire elemental, but it only goggled vacant blue eyes and flitted away like a scrap of parchment. So the brassworker forged on, venturing farther and farther from anywhere he knew.

  Heavier even than his arms was his heart, for Gisnervi could never go home. Poor little Pikki had fallen dead after donning Gisnervi's armor, so the brassworker was either banished forever or else condemned to an exquisite death drawn by the Grand Sultan's expert executioners.

  As to why the dear child dropped dead -

  A scream pierced the efreeti's thoughts. Not an elemental's drawn-out wail or a salamander's bark, but an earthly cry. Which meant, Gisnervi reasoned, somewhere close by lay a portal to the Material World. An unpleasant and cold place to visit, he'd heard, but someplace pursuers were unlikely to search. So, tuning pointed ears to the echo of that scream, Gisnervi cavorted like a salmon and swam.

  As the efreeti poked free of the firepit, he first thought he'd made a mistake. This plane wasn't just cold, it was frigid. His bald boiled head seemed to skim with ice. Noisy too. Caterwauls and shrieks and grunts trumpeted all around. As the efreet fished for a handhold, he knocked some poles awry. Finally he planted red hands on solid ground and shimmied upward. A solid smack against his chest proved to be stone-tipped spear thrown hard, but the efreet brushed it off like a fly. Scissoring long legs, Gisnervi dragged free of sucking coals, brushed himself off, then squinted around.

  "Hunh." Once his eyes adjusted to the dimness, for he'd stared at yellow-red glares for hours, Gisnervi found little to see. A great hall with an arched ceiling. A few crude oddments littered about. The caved-in firepit. And some dingy grub-like creature obviously spitted for dinner. The efreeti sighed. Of all the dismal pestholes -

  Gisnervi startled as the grub spoke. "Greetings, O supreme diety! Welcome to, uh, these ruins! You have saved my miserable life by dousing the fire and chasing off the lizardfolk, so I owe you undying fealty! Gladly will I serve as your slave forever if, uh, you'll only free me of these odious bonds! Truly, I'm a lucky man to witness your arrival, O great one! Long I hope to live to tell my grandchildren and their grandchildren that I bespoke one so magnificent, marvelous, wondrous, kind, sterling, generous-hearted -"

  "Cease! You twitter like an yrthak!" The efreeti peered in the gloom at a creature mother-naked and half-cooked. "Who are you?"

  "Samir, your servant, O grand one!"

  "No, fool. I meant, what are you?"

  "Oh. A man, merciful master."

  "Ah." An idiot, thought Gisnervi. He'd heard of men. They were always clowns and dolts in efreet legends and tales. Clamping his tusks lest they chatter, Gisnervi hooked a black fingernail under the man's bonds and snipped them like threads. "There. Begone."

  "Uh, gladly, munificent one." The human scuttled to a pile of shorn clothes and tackle. Hurriedly he thrust his arms amid rags. A donkey or ass lay there dead, but the efreeti didn't bother to wonder why. He had his own problems.

  Gisnervi scuffed at the cooling firepit and found it solid dirt beneath. He'd need a new fire and bed of coals to pass back into the planes-spanning ocean of flame, but then where? He couldn't return home, yet this plane, wherever it was, was too frigid to endure. "You."

  "GAAH!" The man called Samir startled so hard a belt and hammer went flying. "Uh, yes? What is your wish, O lofty one?"

  Gisnervi frowned. Had this manling no brain? And why had he a death's-head rictus plastered on his stupid face? "Build a fire."

  "Yes, your worship. Glad I am to be of service, O miraculous rescuer -"

  "Stop blithering or I'll bite your head off!" Gisnervi's rumbling tones shook the walls, but he shivered too. He watched the man scrape charcoal together and fumble a flint and steel. The creature was hampered because his tattered shirt hung askew. A sleeve dangled from his chest and dragged in the ashes. Really, thought the efreeti, the wretch was hopeless.

  Disgusted, and worried about his future in this frigid realm, the efreeti spun a quick circle and spiralled into the air like a dervish. An open window high up showed hills and brush and trees under a wan sky. Ugly, unpromising, and dreadfully cold.

  Landing in a flurry of dust, Gisnervi spotted Samir dashing down a dark corridor. With a long bound, the efreet caught up, whirled him through the air, and plunked him back by the firepi
t. "Build a fire or I'll use your bones for tinder! I can't believe it's so cold. How do you survive this arctic weather?"

  "Uh, our warm season just passed, sire." Samir blew up a cloud of sparks and ash that made him cough. "The - ACK! - countryside will be buried in snow and ice before long."

  "Wonderful news." Gisnervi paced by the fire, hands clutched behind his back. Lakes of Lava, he'd perish if he lingered here! Best he crawl back to the Plane of Fire and hide out in some remote region. If he could get word to friends -

  "Uh, master." Samir straightened his ratty clothes with shaking hands. "May I ask, are you a djinni? Because in the old stories, they sometimes grant wishes -"

  "DJINNI?" Gisnervi swivelled so fast the man toppled backward. "We keep djinn as slaves! I'm an EFREETI!"

  "Ah, of course!" The man grinned like a bleached skull. "I should have known, O noble one, because you're so - red."

  "At least, I was an efreet." Agitated, Gisnervi resumed his pacing. "I'm banished now. And an efreeti far from flame might as well be a rast on a rainbow."

  "Truly," agreed Samir, obviously without a clue. "Uh, what was your crime?"

  "I killed the sultan's favorite grandson."

  "Ah." The man crept to his feet. "Uh, perhaps I should gather more wood. Outside. In the forest. It's just chock full of wood."

  "Sit. Feed the fire." Gisnervi's long hand mashed Samir flat. "I never intended to kill the boy. I only gave him a gift. Its presentation was to be my crowning triumph, but it crumbled into the worst nightmare you can imagine ..."

  Airing his gloomy thoughts, Gisnervi told the whole story, finishing, " ... No sooner did the poor child don the breastplate, a minute at most, then he fell dead. Perhaps he grew too excited. Any road, I was branded an assassin and had to flee. I can never return home."

  "That is sad," said the man. "Strange that you're an armorsmith. I am too."

  "Eh?" Gisnervi peered. The oaf didn't look capable of hammering his thumb. "What do you fashion?"

  "Oh, I make repairs, mostly. But I had to leave town ..." The man sketched troubles stirred up by two avaricious smiths named Davin and Keggar. " ... So I'm homeless as you are. I was trekking to Longsaddle to set up my forge there, but I got lost and nearly eaten. And if I go home, I'll suffer two broken arms. Or worse."

  "It's the same all over." Still cold, Gisnervi picked up a burning brand and stroked it along his skin. Being but a weak cousin of pure elemental fire, the flame gave little heat. "In the City of Brass, artisans suffer merchandise inspectors. If we produce inferior work, we might be sunk headfirst into molten lava or skinned alive or disembowelled so dire gricks can gorge on our organs. Purely as a warning, you understand."

  "I understand." Obviously the man was fuddled, but he returned to a niggling point. "You gave a prince a breastplate and he died? I hate to contradict, sire, but that makes no sense. Unless ... As a sultan's grandson he'd be the target of assassins. Could someone have smeared poison on the armor, or planted a poisoned needle?"

  "Don't be an ass!" Gisnervi tossed the burning brand onto the fire. "I fashioned the thing myself. Nine months of hard work. I never let anyone touch it ..."

  Samir raised singed eyebrows. "Yes?"

  "Someone did touch it!" Gisnervi plucked his wispy chin beard. "Two bronze brutes ripped it from my hands to inspect it, or so they claimed. One spun me around to search me while the other held the armor. But it was only a minute or two -"

  "That's it!" said Samir. "That's long enough to smear poison -"

  "No!" Gisnervi's bark made the human jump. "I polished off the fingerprints! There was nothing smeared on either side or stuck along any edge of the breastplate!"

  "A curse then. Or a spell. They'd leave no sign of tampering." Rising, wary, Samir rummaged through some saddlebags hung on the dead donkey. Gisnervi looked up at a clank, wondering if the human dared draw a weapon, but he'd only shifted a sledgehammer and pick onto marble flagstones.

  "A curse ..." Gisnervi stared at dancing flames. "That signifies. No one may bring weapons or magicked implements into the palace unless thoroughly inspected by the head djinn. My breastplate was pored over minutely. Yet if someone laid on a curse after the inspection, there's hope."

  "Hope of what?" The man munched soggy hardtack and watched the shadows.

  "A curse isn't like an enchantment. I wove a weather-protection spell into the breastplate, and it took days. Those brutes only had the armor for a moment. If they did lay on a curse, it's thin. It should peel off like a paint spatter. And whatever the curse did might be undone!"

  "Well, then, your task is simple." Samir fiddled with the fire. "Get the breastplate and un-magic it."

  "Not me." Gisnervi's black eyes gleamed in firelight. "You."

  Samir swallowed hardtack wrong and choked. "M-m-me?"

  "For certain. Why else did the fates fetch me here to rescue you?"

  "I wished for rescue!" chirped Samir. "Isn't that enough?"

  "No! You owe me respite! And I can't go back. I'd be identified in a trice." Gisnervi paced back and forth, absorbed in the mechanics of the problem. "But I can dispatch you to the City of Brass. Small and puny, you can skulk free as a mouse. The breastplate can't have gone far. So. You sneak around, steal the breastplate, and return it here. I'll get the curse exorcised, and maybe we'll point out the real assassins! The Grand Sultan might even - eh?"

  A rapid pattering carried through the cavern. Gisnervi saw Samir pelting down a corridor, shirt hem flapping like a deer's tail. The giant bellowed, "Come back here, you ungrateful flea-bitten son of a fungus!" Whirling up a dust devil, Gisnervi zipped after the fugitive.

  Intent on running, the smith looked over his shoulder rather than ahead. Gisnervi grunted as the human crashed headlong into a scowling lizardman, one of four. The beasts were all shark-tooth mouths and fishhook claws, and they chuckled in croaks as they hoisted Samir like a prize trout. "Hellllllp!"

  Ducking to pass under human-sized lintels, the red-skinned giant swept toward the party like a tornado, then flicked a hand. "Begone, troglodytes!"

  From Gisnervi's fingertips shot balls of lighting that whacked the lizards in the head, throat, brisket, and legs. The missiles crackled as they hit, scorching scaly hide and raising a stink. Punished, the lizards dropped Samir on his head and frog-hopped off into darkness, serrated tails wig-wagging behind.

  Gisnervi spiralled around the fallen Samir on his cushion of air. Black eyes glared as he tugged on his wispy goatee. "Friend smith, I've saved your life twice. A third meeting with those squatty scaled interlopers will serve you ill."

  "Agreed. I'll do whate'er you request." Samir pushed to his feet and dusted his rump. "The fates have willed I shan't see another sunset. What's the difference if I'm eclipsed here or elsewhere?"

  "That's the spirit!" Gisnervi clapped the smith's back. "And don't all mortals long to behold the fabled City of Brass?"

  "None that I know." Trudging back to the fire, Samir again straightened his shorn clothing. "I'd be content just to see the four walls of my humble home again."

  "I too," admitted Gisnervi. "But a few chance chores beckon first. Who knows? Mayhaps we'll both survive this mad venture. Even prosper!"

  The human only sighed.

  " ... The Storm Armor will be easy to spot. There's nothing else like it in the City of Brass."

  "Undoubtedly," hedged Samir. "Just how big is this city?"

  "Oh, it's big, make no mistake. The largest city on the Plane of Fire, which is the largest plane of all, the sages say. No one's ever counted the entire populace, but the city boasts at least half a million souls."

  Samir gasped. "And I'm supposed to find one tiny breastplate?"

  "Of course. It's in the highest part of the palace, which is the highest building in the highest part of the city. Now stop wasting breath and prepare yourself."

  "We who are about to die ..." muttered Samir. Somehow he couldn't trust a creature ten feet tall, red as a sugar maple in autumn, bald, fanged,
and horned, who crawled out of firepits and proposed impossible crusades. Still, as long as this crazy genie lingered, Samir was safe from lizardfolk, so he followed orders and prepared as best he could, if only to make a decent-looking corpse. With his sewing kit he'd stitched the worst rents in his clothes. He'd dried his boots, though the toes now curled. At the giant's behest, he'd stripped the harness off his drowned donkey and slung straps crosswise over his chest to form crude holsters. From each hip hung his sledgehammer and pick. Steel tools would stand Samir in good stead in a city made of brass, claimed the brassworker.

  As an added precaution, Gisnervi had shucked the fretwork wheel adorning his chest, his guild badge, and fastened it to Samir's chest straps. The giant explained, "Undoubtedly they stripped the breastplate from poor Pikki's body first thing. It will be stashed somewhere under lock and key. The court's enchanters will want to study it. My badge will point you to it, since I fashioned both artifacts."

  "If you say so."

  Gisnervi fussed with the fire, scraping and puffing and smoothing the coals with his hands. He'd heaped wood for hours until the bed glowed so hot it dried Samir's eyeballs. The smith hung back. He'd suffered enough fire to last ten lifetimes.

  Eventually the brassworker clapped his hands. "Ready. All we needs do is douse you with water -"

  "Water?" piped Samir. "Why?"

  "Protection." Gisnervi picked up a man-high amphora he'd found in the ruins. "Hold still!"

  "Wait!" Once again, Samir retreated from the towering efreet. "What does -"

  Water cascaded over the smith's head, sousing him to the skin when he'd just gotten dry. Spluttering, rubbing his eyes, he couldn't avoid being picked up like a puppy by the brass-thewed efreet.

  "Stop wiggling!" Gisnervi juggled the smith upside-down. "You'll spoil my aim!"

  "Aim?" Clutched high in two red hands, Samir scissored his legs helplessly at the ceiling as the efreet marched to the roaring fire. "What are you shooting -"

  Winding up, grunting with effort, Gisnervi slammed Samir with all his might head-first into the fire.