The Iron Wyrm Affair

Her grip on Mikal’s arm loosened. If there was an event here, he had to be free to fight. Her chin lifted as she examined the Circle’s work, storing away the odd peculiarities of personality visible in the strands. A sorcerer’s memory was trained just as ruthlessly as her ability; in some cases, even more. And this was work she had not seen before. “Rather bad accommodations, I’m afraid. Are you well?”

His laugh came from the bottom of a dark well. Veils of sorcery shifted, keeping a Prime’s force contained. His will, even broken or twisted, would fight any containment laid upon it; a Prime did not take a bridle well, if at all. Hence the hardening of the air, alive with ætheric force, blurring his outlines as if he sat behind a screen.

“I’m locked in a cell in Bedlam, Emma. Obviously I am not well.” His dark eyes glimmered through the strings of hair. “And I have not even a change of linen. Barbarians.”

Your household should have bribed someone to bring such things to you. Her wariness increased, if that were possible. “If you will waste my time, Lord Sellwyth, I shall go elsewhere.”

It was a gamble, of course. It could prick his pride, and he might well refuse to say anything now. It could also trigger whatever unpleasantness was waiting around the corner, making the charm and charter react oddly. She was passing familiar with most native-Britannium sorcerers’ work; sorcery always carried the stamp of its channel. But this was … odd.

And, as she had suspected, the thing Llewellyn feared most was the loss of his audience. “I would not want to waste your time, dear Bannon.” He made the words a sing-song, rolling his head on his shoulders. Strings of hair crawled against each other and the cloth of his coat with bloated little whispers as sorcery crackled. “Especially when you’ve brought a snake-charmer and a lapdog with you.”

Fortunately, Clare had enough presence of mind to hold his peace. Mikal almost twitched, restlessly, and Llewellyn’s smile widened. “How long will it be before he strangles you, just like he did Crawford? And you, Emma. Queen and Country, how boring. Wouldn’t you like some real power?”

How very unlike you to be so direct. Emma’s concentration narrowed. “Throckmorton, Llewellyn. Your charge. You undertook to guard him at Britannia’s request; he is dead, your Shields are dead, and you are … here. Whatever could have happened?” Precise, drily astonished, for all the world like a professor mocking a slightly dim student. Llewellyn hated that tone, especially when it was delivered by a woman.

His face contorted for a bare moment. The sorcerous interference intensified, streaks of shimmering painting the outside of a perfect, invisible globe as a Prime’s will reflexively sought to break its cage. “Mentath,” he whispered. “That’s a mentath; some fool’s let you get your hands on one. Stupid—”

Get my hands on— But the physical structure of Bedlam tolled once, a giant bell shivering as a hammerstroke echoed through the lattices of probability, and something hit her from the side, driving her down.

Chapter Six Reflexes and Temper

It was a most interesting conversation, layers of inference and deduction ticking below the conscious surface of Clare’s faculties, and he wondered briefly just when the sorcerer trapped in the Circle had ceased to be Miss Bannon’s lover. Well, at least they had most certainly been intimate at one time, and sorcery’s children had far different standards than the common crowd, but still, quite interesting. And from the sound of it, Miss Bannon had broken the attachment, yet there was no lingering of regret in her.

Clare’s wonderings were interrupted by an odd scent. Brimstone, perhaps? And a faint low scraping, like a match swept across a strikeplate. The space inside the circle rippled, oddly, becoming no more than a painted screen for a bare moment.

He leapt, knocking Miss Bannon down. A moment of excruciating heat kissed the back of his coat. Then he was rolling, a confusion of shadows flickering as someone hurtled over him, deadly silent with flashing blades. Stink of wet, smoking wool, Miss Bannon struggling to her feet, the amber suddenly a glowing yellow star in the dimness as she snapped two words. Her hands flung themselves out, white birds, slim fingers fluttering. There was a crack, and a sudden showering smell of wet salt.

“Mikal?” Bannon, breathless in the sudden quiet.

“Here.” The single word was so grim Clare tensed.

“The mentath—”

“Well enough.” Clare finished shrugging out of his jacket. The wool was smoking, a dull, unpleasant fume. “Well. That was entertaining.”

“Quick reflexes.” The other man bent down, offering his hand. “For one of your kind.”

He means it as a compliment. “And your own reflexes?”

The sorceress murmered. Thin threads of smoke traced up from her dress. The yellow-eyed man glanced at her. “Not quick enough, apparently. No—” He caught Clare’s shoulder. “Do not approach her just now.”

The sorceress’s jaw worked, and for a moment Clare had the uneasy feeling of lightning about to strike – a raising of fine hairs on his arms and neck, his glands responding to some feral current.

He decided she was indeed not to be approached. “That must have been heard. We shall have guards here in a moment, and explanations to be made.”

For there was a large smoking hole in the wall, odd twisted writing scored around its edges. Bedlam had sorcerous protections, but this did not seem to be one of them responding to Miss Bannon. Of course, Clare admitted, he could not be certain. But Miss Bannon would have no doubt alerted him, would she not?

The Shield’s next words placed all doubt aside.

“A cunning trap, and well laid. We shall indeed be going.” Mikal’s lean face set itself, lines bracketing his mouth. “But my Prima has a temper, mentath. Wait just a moment.”

The sorceress, indeed, was trembling. She stared at the hole in the wall to the next cell’s blackness, her lips now moving soundlessly. The writing scored around the edges of the hole burned with sullen foxfire.

Clare cast a nervous glance at the steel-framed door. Grayson had indeed had worthless suppositions, but not as useless as Miss Bannon had supposed. One or two of them were quite reasonable, given the Chancellor’s knowledge of events. And the encircled sorcerer’s words had been most peculiar indeed.

But this was something altogether different. And troubling. “Does Miss Bannon have enemies?”

Mikal’s profile vaguely reminded Clare of a classical statue. The Shield leaned forward, weight on the balls of his feet and his long coat oddly pristine. His attention was focused on the woman, whose trembling had spread into the air around her. Rather like the heat haze above a fire, air almost solid and shimmering as something invisible stroked it.

“She is Prime,” the Shield said, quietly, as if that should be explanation enough. “And she does not suffer fools gladly.”

“Well, I could see that.” Clare stamped on his jacket once or twice more, to make certain it would not combust, and picked it up. Shook it out, shrugged into it. His hat had flown away; he found it in the ruins of the straw pallet. He glanced through the hole in the wall as he did so, but the uncertain light permitted no disclosing of its secrets. It was an oubliette; it might as well have been a painted-black circle. “Miss Bannon? Miss Bannon. If you please, we should be going now.”

The yellow-eyed man inhaled sharply, but when Clare glanced up, he saw the sorceress had regained her composure. She clutched at her shoulder as if it had been re-injured, and red sparks revolved in her dilated pupils for a moment before winking out.

“You’re quite right.” Curiously husky. “My thanks, Mr Clare. Mikal, let us be gone from here at once.”

“The sorcerer—” Clare did not relish the thought of giving her the news, but it had to be said.

For nothing remained of Llewellyn Gwynnfud but a rag of flesh and charred, twisting bone splinters, still trapped inside the circle of blue flame and heavy, rippling shifting.

“Appears dead, of course.” She inhaled sharply and sagged, and the yellow-eyed man apparently judged her