Bold as Brass Read online

"Yaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!"

  Screaming all the way, Samir saw flashes of yellow-red, then blue-white, then red, orange, and so on, all the colors of fire interlaced by smudgy crinkles of black. Vaguely the smith realized he passed through some otherworldly realm of fire, and so hollered all the louder -

  - and grunted as he was vomited out of a blazing inferno.

  Landing on a floor with a bone-bruising bounce, Samir skidded for what seemed miles across flagstones of polished brass slippery as glass. Spinning on his back, he glimpsed snatches of a room vast as all outdoors. A ceiling painted with stories from legend whizzed by. Soaring walls were split by tall arched windows that showed onion-dome minarets on towers thin as grass stalks, all pointing to a sky white as a snowstorm. In dizzying snatches, Samir noted that hundreds of people wore white wrapped about their bodies in long strands.

  Spinning out of control, warbling in fright, Samir tilted so the heavy pick tucked in his belt suddenly snagged a polished flagstone with an ear-grating SCREEK! The smith gyrated to an abrupt stop, gulping to not be sick all over the opulent floor.

  Groaning, Samir staggered to his feet. Once his vision stopped spinning, for the first time he saw the room clearly. And wished he hadn't.

  Efreet from nine to nineteen feet tall filled the room like a restless forest. Samir saw skin like black glass, green jade, blue sapphires, some even striped like tigers and zebras. Fur adorned heads and shoulders and chests. Everywhere were exhibited short and long horns, yellow and white tusks, flaming eyeballs and nostrils, and more horrors. A nightmare of monsters. Yet curiously, every silent being was draped in long folds of white looped around waists, shoulders, thighs, even around heads like hoods. Or shrouds.

  Gaping, Samir realized invisible hands tugged at his breast. Looking down, he saw Gisnervi's fretwork badge hovered a handspan away from his chest, straining at the straps as if drawn toward a lodestone.

  Then Samir saw. The glaring giants clustered around a low coffin surrounded by a kingdom's worth of jewels and metalware and clockwork toys and other treasures. In the coffin, reposing in state, lay a boy even smaller than Samir. His golden skin was mirrored by a gleaming brass breastplate strapped to his chest.

  A funeral wake! babbled Samir. Mourners bedecked in white, the color of a corpse. And I, precious fool, just invaded the deathwatch.

  Hundreds of horrific heads craned toward the lone man. Then the voice of an angry ruler bellowed, "A human? Here? Guards! EXTERMINATE HIM!"

  Without any plan, only knowing he mustn't stay still, Samir put down his head and ran. He skedaddled across the polished brass flagstones toward his only goal, the coffin. Efreet growled and yelled and roared. Some dodged aside, not wishing to interfere with stampeding guards, all eight-foot Harem Guard Djinn who hated their enslavement and welcomed the chance to rend and tear another being to shreds. As they converged, Samir ducked on wings of panic amid a towering crowd of efreet, a seeming forest of bare legs and feet.

  More howls. As the robed and mustachioed harem djinn tried to follow the felon, they were cuffed and whacked by efreet not wishing to be touched by inferiors. As blows and curses rang, Samir stole the opportunity to veer back toward the coffin. Spells began to sizzle about the room, shot by efreet and djinn alike: pyrotechnics, fireballs, blasts of frost breath, green clouds of gas. In the roiling confusion, Samir ducked and dodged, always pointed in the right direction by the fretwork wheel on his chest.

  But Oh, my! The heat! Already Samir gasped for air. The room was hotter than desert stone in summertime at noon. The atmosphere throbbed with heat. If Samir hadn't spent years slaving over a furious forge, he'd have shrivelled like a daisy in a blast furnace.

  Panting, skittering left and right willy-nilly, the smith spotted the coffin again, almost within striking distance. Then two glowering guards shut the gap before him. Time, thought Samir, to pull his secret weapon.

  As the djinn slid scimitars from scabbards with a sobbing moan, the human smith dragged free his pick. Efreet dived aside as twin bronze blades scythed the air to slice Samir in half. The smith hoisted his heavy steel tool at the same time.

  KA-CLANG! Bronze blades shattered on steel, as they always will. The two guards frowned, puzzled, at broken hilts. This being the City of Brass, the djinn had never seen steel before. Or so Samir hoped.

  Still, eight-foot guards didn't need weapons to kill one puny human. Dropping their hilts with twin clanks, they jumped to throttle Samir with bare hands. The smith pulled his second trick. Striking with years of practice, timing the blow just right, Samir slammed the pick hard enough to shatter granite.

  Djinn yowled as both their pointed shoes were pinned to the brass floor. Samir wasn't sure if he'd nailed feet or just shoes, but he didn't care. Leaving the pick, he whipped behind a laughing efreeti and raced toward his goal.

  Bellows and shrieks echoed as the only human in the City of Brass broke from the crowd. A pair of wicked icicles screamed past Samir's ear, then a spear sizzled by. Two brawny hands grabbed, but Samir evaded, for once glad he was short and slight. Treasure was heaped around the coffin, gifts dedicated to the memory of Prince Pikki. Samir was here to violate the dead, which would likely plunge him in hellfire for a few eternities, but he had no choice. With a clatter and clang the smith scrambled up the pile, leaned into the coffin, latched onto the breastplate, and yanked.

  The straps were tough. Grunting, the smith yanked again. Djinn guards and efreet citizens wailed in horror as poor Prince Pikki was jerked to a sitting position and shaken like a dice cup.

  "Lords of eternity," gasped Samir, "even the dead conspire against me!"

  No use tugging, and guards charged from all directions. Whipping out his belt knife, Samir sliced the straps. Handsome honey-colored Prince Pikki flopped back on his satin pillows and cushions as if suddenly sleepy. Samir clutched the breastplate against his chest and -

  - felt a sickening lurch. The coffin rested on sawhorses or braces draped with a tapestry. Samir's rabid jigging and jerking had tilted the coffin. Screams rang through the vast hall as, with an ominous creak, the coffin slid off the braces, slithered down the pile of cascading treasures, and crashed to the floor. Prince Pikki, late and most beloved son of the City of Brass, was uncermoniously dumped on his face to roll like a rag doll. Samir just managed to jump clear before the coffin struck the floor and split along all its seams.

  Samir was hardly safe. Still clutching the breastplate, he cast about wildly for some way to flee and found none. Many efreet recoiled in terror as if Samir were some vile demon summoned to defile and mock the dead. Other guests were simply frozen in shock or else boiled in rage. Djinn guards didn't know what to do. Such an audacious attack in the palace's throne room was beyond their ken, and if Samir could stop two stalwart djinn with a single blow of a magic weapon, he could wither others to cinders, or worse. And with all the shouting and screaming, it was impossible to hear orders.

  Save one. Standing astride his multi-tiered throne, His Most Excellent and Bountiful Lord Minjan, Grand Sultan of the City of Brass in the Plane of Fire, bellowed like a bull facing slaughter. "Kill him! Rend him! All of you, every subject and every slave, tear that infernal imp to shreds or suffer the same fate!"

  The command galvanized the room. As if in a dream, Samir saw every hand rise to crush him, every eye spurt fire to immolate him, every foot stamp forward to stomp him flat.

  Time, he thought, for his second and last secret weapon.

  Juggling the brass breastplate, Samir ripped loose his sledgehammer. With everyone an enemy, he needn't decide where to strike. Hefting the heavy hammer by the end of the handle, he shouted and spun a circle. Steel banged knees, battered knuckles, shattered a brass belt buckle, spanked off Prince Pikki's sullied coffin, slammed aside a brass scimitar - and punched a tiny space through which Samir glimpsed daylight. Clutching brass and steel, he slid on his knees and squirted under the sawhorse that had supported the coffin. Skittering to his feet, he ran, flailing the steel hammer hy
sterically left and right and behind. Two guards jumped in his way, this time with brass shields cast with hideous medusa designs. With the strength of a madman, Samir flung the sledgehammer. One shield shattered and the other was knocked awry. Hammerless, Samir squirted between them.

  Amazed that he thought so coolly while gibbering in panic, Samir realized he had no plan for returning to the Material Plane. He'd hoped grabbing the breastplate would magically whisk him away home, but no magic wind scooped him up. Perhaps he should plunge back into the pyre, which seemed suicide. Any road, he had only one clear path. Ahead, below a tall arched window, yawned a gap in the floor, obviously the head of a stairwell. Maybe Samir could vault downstairs and hide in the kitchens or elsewhere, a human rat cowering between the walls of this giant-infested palace. It was worth a try, so he raced on.

  Slipping and sliding as if on ice, with hundreds of heavy feet pounding at his heels, Samir jumped for the stairwell - and discovered no stairs.

  Of course, reasoned a distant part of Samir's mind. Efreet and djinn could fly on those little dust devils. He'd seen Gisnervi do it. So why, in their homeland, would they need stairs? A square hole in the floor would suffice. But not for humans.

  Screaming, Samir dropped twenty feet or more. Likely he would have died had not the floors been so highly polished. As it was, falling at an angle, he skipped like a stone across waves, bouncing painfully a time or two. He'd almost congratulated himself on his miraculous escape -

  - when he bounced one more time right out a window.

  Squawling, the smith got a brief eagle-eye view of the City of Brass spread beyond his boot toes. Spires, minarets, intricate buildings spun of glass and stone and metal, soaring bridges and more all beckoned - like hungry teeth set to gobble him up when he splatted hundreds of feet below.

  Clawing air desperately, the hand of the blacksmith snagged a window cornice at the last second. After swinging free for a heartstopping eternity, Samir jerked to a halt and slammed on his back. Still clutching the breastplate, and testing delicately with his toes, he found he'd crashed on a stepped tier four feet wide. Drawing his toes back gingerly, trying to breath around a heart pounding fit to burst, Samir crabbed backwards and huddled against the building, tight as a coat of paint.

  His situation, Samir soon decided, hadn't improved much. Better he'd splattered or been impaled on a minaret far far below, because any moment he'd be hauled back inside and minced by horny multi-hued hands. At least he wouldn't suffer long, he thought dolefully.

  With shouts of triumph, djinn slaves and efreet discovered the offender. With wind whistling around his ears, barely able to open his eyes, Samir saw efreet lean from nearby windows. More peered from the throne room above. Djinn harem slaves hopped out and floated light as thistledown to Samir's left and right. Two efreet even hovered in empty air lest he dive for freedom straight down. One by one, the denizens of the City of Brass folded brawny arms across their breasts and glowered at the loneliest human on the Plane of Fire.

  "Father Sky and Mother Earth," gibbered Samir, "my only prayer is that, when they're done with me, some shred of my soul finds its way home, lest I remain an unwanted ghost baking in this hot air until eternity crumbles!"

  Done praying, Samir closed his eyes and waited for whatever fate dealt.

  The answer was totally unexpected.

  "Wait!" called a young voice from above. "Don't hurt him! I'm all right!"

  Cracking an eyelid, Samir peeked. Hanging from a window right above beamed Prince Pikki, hale and hearty and grinning.

  " ... Thus are you pardoned of all sins, human and efreeti both, and free to go with our blessing."

  The magnificent voice of Grand Sultan Lord Mingan pounded Samir's ears and rumbled against his breastbone, yet he grinned just as widely as Prince Pikki. Beside him, red-skinned Gisnervi smiled too, showing teeth like pickets in a fence. The Storm Armor shone in his hands.

  A lot had happened in a few hours. Examined by the court physician, Prince Pikki was pronounced fully restored in body and soul. The latter diagnosis was especially important. The curse laid upon Gisnervi's breastplate at the last moment had proven fairly mild, as the brassworker guessed, so only sucked a portion of the prince's essence into the virgin metal. Sniffing the breastplate for traces of the curse, clever viziers had scryed out the twin bronze brutes and wrung out the plot. With the boy seeming dead, in such a hot environment he would quickly be entombed with his ancestors - later to be disinterred, kidnapped, revived, and ransomed for a fortune. What foiled the plot, the Grand Sultan made clear, was Samir's ripping the cursed breastplate off the boy's body. Once Samir explained his presence, Gisnervi was summoned home by two messenger djinns.

  Just like that, Samir and Gisnervi were heroes.

  Standing before the throne, surrounded by hordes of smiling citizens, with the plucky prince by their side, the two basked in the glory of their unplanned valor. Then Prince Pikki piped, "May I have my armor back?"

  A hush descended. The Grand Sultan's volcanic face flushed in momentary anger, then unclouded. The ruler patted his grandson's tiny head, but pointed a finger thick as a rolled rug at Gisnervi. "Brassworker, we know you toiled long and hard to create the Storm Armor. But sight of the artifact stirs unpleasant memories. We charge you to fashion new armor for Pikki's eighth birthday, not just a breastplate, but a full suit or armor befitting his new status as a warrior. As for that once-cursed cuirass, take it elsewhere."

  So saying, the Grand Sultan struck his hands together like a thunderclap.

  Ears ringing, Samir and Gisnervi peered around. They stood again in the dark dank ruins under the wilds near the Neverwinter Woods. Samir's eyes bugged. "That was quick."

  "One reason why he's Grand Sultan." Gisnervi tugged his chin beard as he cast about. "Likely the lizards won't be back. Best I leave the armor here. I can always return for it later, after the stories die down or grow muddled."

  Tilting the breastplate, Gisnervi passed his great red hands over the intricate surface. A finger lingered on the artfully etched storm cloud and lightning bolt. Briefly a golden shimmer flickered across the brass.

  "What's that?" asked Samir. "Magic?"

  "Just a cantrip. If anyone touches the armor, I'll know. Let's put it ... here." Searching, the efreet set the armor in a crack in the wall where two building blocks had shifted.

  "It's a shame to tuck it away to oblivion," said Samir. "It really is a masterpiece, the most beautiful armor I've ever beheld."

  Oddly, Gisnervi laughed. "That's what we smiths like to hear most, isn't it, simple praise for our hard work? But how often are we denied it? No matter. I'll have a proper workshop near the palace soon, with apprentices and journeymen and more forges than I can oversee, likely. I'll craft armor for princes and sultans such as never before seen!"

  "Wish I could say the same," said Samir. "I can't sail home to glory because of two rat-greedy guildmasters. I just wish -"

  "Wishes come from djinn, not efreet." Gisnervi dusted his long red hands. "Still, I may be able to help. Show me the way."

  Scooping up the smith like a child, the efreet hummed some weird tune that sent them both rising in the air on a minor tornado. Spiralling up to the arched ceiling, Gisnervi and Samir whirled out a square window into twilight. Above the brushy hill and shining pond they buzzed like a dragonfly and its prey. As Samir stuttered directions, Gisnervi zipped along the evening sky, so high the armorsmith thought they'd brush winking stars. In minutes, the smoking volcano that some called the Mariners' Mark and others Mount Moonstone whisked by underneath. So went the Neverwinter Woods, until before them rolled the Sea of Swords glittering in moonlight. As Samir babbled, Gisnervi arced toward the ground like a shooting star. City walls, stately elms, tidy gardens and the hand-hewn towers of the Temple of Tyr rushed by Samir's feet, then the two landed light as milkweed fluff in a crooked street before a two-story building not far from the Dolphin Bridge where cascades babbled and sang.

  "This is th
e place." The two had agreed what to do. Clutching the smithing hammer shoved in his belt, Samir pushed open a double door. "I'll call."

  The smith's guild was rough-cut lumber stacked on a stone foundation, but homey and warm with a huge central fireplace. As the day drew to a close, smiths and journeymen and other townsfolk crowded the bar, though the atmosphere was moody and glum. A few folk nodded civilly to Samir as he strode the length of the room. Many marvelled as he marched to the hall's far corner.

  The guildmasters Davin and Keggar occupied their favorite table, where they did more business than in the guild offices on the balcony circling above. Davin was lean and Keggar was fat, and both were smug as they plotted over foaming mugs and a chalkboard with names tallied in two columns. Glancing up, they scowled at Samir. Davin said, "Finally came to your senses, eh?"

  "No." Flushed with pent-up anger, Samir drew his smith's hammer and smashed it square on the chalkboard so shards flew in all directions.

  For a second, neither guildmaster could believe what they saw. Then both scrambled from their chairs mouthing curses. Samir stalled by levelling his hammer at their red-veined noses.

  "You two rascals," Samir announced to the room, "have pushed Neverwinter's smiths around long enough! From this day hence, you two will step down and return to your anvils! We'll vote in new guildmasters, not your cronies or toadies, and then we smiths will work on what we will as we please!"

  Stunned silence. A few smiths murmured approval, then more joined in, and soon cheers rang to the rafters. Yet the roars of approval died as Davin and Keggar braced small Samir from two sides.

  "And you," sneered Davin, "will enforce this new rule?"

  "Not I," said Samir evenly. "My friend. GISNERVI!"

  The front doors were too low for the efreet to enter, so he simply ripped off the front of the guildhall. Wood shrieked and stone tumbled as the wall was yanked free and tossed aside with a tremendous crunch and clatter. The ten-foot boiled-red efreet stormed inside to stand behind his human friend.