He whirled, and drew. His arming sword was steady. He sank back into the guard he’d been taught for such situations, and the lead man slowed. But he had a heavy stick and didn’t stop. He ran in and swung it heavily at Mortirmir.
If you practise things often enough, sometimes they happen whether you stop to consider them or not. The heavy blow rolled off his sweeping sword – he stepped forward, left foot passing right, and his free left hand slammed into the man’s elbow, half spinning him, then Mortirmir’s downward sword cut hit him on the crown of the head – a little flat, as the cut was too fast and a little panicked – but the effect was right. The man fell unconscious. Or perhaps just dead.
The other broken men paused.
‘We can take ’im,’ said the smallest, a bearded ruffian with two daggers.
‘You first, dickhead,’ said another, backing away.
Mortirmir was full of the spirit of prowess – he had no other words to describe it, but he felt ten feet tall, his heart thumped in his chest, and-
– and there was a bright red-gold fire burning on his left hand.
He almost lost his purse and his life right there – stunned that his left hand was cloaked in power, he missed the man coming for his left side. But he caught the incoming blow in his peripheral vision and pivoted on his hips, got his blade up and caught most of the blow, then stepped in and put his pommel into the man’s face. This rogue was faster or better trained than the first, and the pommel scraped his nose and no more. Mortirmir passed him as they both stumbled.
Mortirmir raised his left hand to ward against the man’s dagger – by luck and training he caught the man’s wrist in the tangle, although the point of the dagger pinked his thigh.
The rogue screamed and dropped the dagger. He stumbled back, his cudgel waving between them.
Mortirmir knew the phantasm for fire. He knew it intimately, and yet, in that moment, in mortal combat, he couldn’t summon the words for it, not even when whole bright red fire played on his hand.
The man with two daggers started at his right side.
Mortirmir seized hold of his mind and summoned the mental construct that he had memorised so pointlessly. He put his left hand at Two Daggers and said ‘Poieo! ’ in High Archaic.
His memory palace was a fledgling thing – well constructed, based on the temple of Minerva outside the city walls. The professors all agreed that it should be constructed of a place he loved.
The problem was that since none of his phantasms ever worked, his impetus to construct and improve the palace had withered. So the ancient pillar – flawless white marble – was indistinct, and he could not tell for sure how many facets it had, nor could he read the graffiti he’d so carefully inscribed.
But he focused his will, took a deep mental breath, and there it was – a fish for Pisces, an eagle – for-
Saint Mark! And the gospel, and
In the beginning was the WORD,
And an owl-
Sweet Christ, the owl stands for wisdom, and . . .
MINERVA . . . ?
The man’s first dagger cut almost caught his outstretched hand. He bounced back, cut with his sword-
‘Athena!’ he spat.
Two Daggers immolated.
The force of the phantasm stunned Mortirmir and he stumbled back, as much in shock as from the force of the heat. The man screamed, terribly. He wasn’t dead, and three heartbeats later, he still wasn’t dead.
Mortirmir took a deep breath, made himself step forward, and cut the man’s head from his body.
The fire went out. The man was horribly burned, his skin almost melted, one of his eyeballs popped and the other-
The image of the ruined man would haunt Mortirmir for many nights. In the meantime, he spun, ready for another attacker, and they were gone – he saw them vanish around corners like roaches fleeing a night candle. He took a deep breath.
His hands were shaking uncontrollably.
‘I did it,’ he muttered.
He stumbled a few steps, and decided, as if making the decision from a great distance, to continue his mission to the palace.
Two streets later, he realised that he still had a sword in his hand, and it was dripping blood. He stopped and expended one of his mother’s linen squares on the sword. Some of the blood was dried like lacquer. He spat on the blade, suddenly far too focused on cleaning it, and another hundred heartbeats later, he realised that he wasn’t thinking particularly well.
He got the blade clean enough, and sheathed it.
His right glove was soaked in blood, and there was blood running down his right leg from a hole in his thigh.
He kept going towards the palace.
He crossed the street of the lawyers, and it was empty. In the armourer’s streets, there were men with swords and half-pikes – workmen. He paused at the fountain.
A man in Etruscan half-armour came up to him. ‘What news, neighbour?’ the man asked courteously enough.
Mortirmir bowed. ‘I’m a student at the University,’ he said. ‘Men attacked me in the square of the jewellers.’ His saliva suddenly tasted of salt – he flashed on the burned man.
The other man nodded. ‘You don’t look like a looter to me,’ he said. But he pointed at the sword. ‘Are you a barbarian?’
Mortirmir nodded. ‘From Alba,’ he said, ignoring his automatic resentment at the term.
‘Ah. Harndon?’ the man asked.
‘I have that honour,’ Mortirmir said. His voice sounded a little wild inside his head.
‘There are fine armourers in Harndon,’ the man said. ‘Can you name one?’
Mortirmir saw that there were a dozen apprentices around him, armed to the teeth.
‘Master Pye lives in my mother’s street,’ he said. ‘I’ve been fishing with his daughters.’
The atmosphere lightened immediately. ‘Ah! Master Pye!’ cried the armoured man. He bowed. ‘These are difficult times, ser. I had to be sure. May I ask why you are out? The watch has called a curfew and we are all supposed to be in our beds.’
Mortirmir had to struggle with his own somewhat unruly mind to come up with an answer. ‘I’m going to the palace.’ He shrugged. ‘For a girl.’
Luckily for Mortirmir, the armourer had known a few young men, and a few girls. He smiled. ‘The palace is in turmoil,’ he said. ‘But I will take you there for Master Pye’s sake.’
An hour later, with four armed apprentices at his back, Mortirmir stood at the postern gate of the Outer Court and knocked. It was the fourth gate he had tried – his armourers were enjoying the adventure, but all five of them were tired of failure.
However, here the grate was opened – the first sign of life they’d seen in the palace. ‘State your business,’ said a voice.
Mortirmir had had an hour to practise his speech and calm himself from the fight in the square. ‘Kyrios,’ he said, ‘I have come to find my friend Harald Derkensun of the Nordikan Guard. And to ascertain if the palace is in need of any food or drink that the city taverns might supply in this emergency. I have at my back members of the City Guild of Smiths, who would like to know-’
The postern opened, and revealed half a dozen ill-kept-looking Scholae guardsmen.
‘Fresh bread wouldn’t be amiss,’ said the tallest of them, a man in magnificent, if somewhat tattered, satin and samnite clothes, with a breastplate of scales and three days growth of beard. ‘As for Master Derkensun, he’s with the Empress. And I’d take it as a personal favour if you’d walk a note to my bride. If she’ll still have me.’ He looked at the armourer’s apprentices. ‘She lives in your quarter.’
‘I’d like to see Master Derkensun,’ Mortirmir insisted. He felt empowered. Literally. He had never felt so full of spirit, and his hands and chest felt as if they might catch fire.