“He’s worried we’re about to send him off to the Executioner,” the Mayor said.
I gave the man a sickly smile. “Quite. Bramble is unique. It has qualities that we may think of as magical-its astonishing growth, its resilience, the way that magic seems to fertilize its flourishing-but who can say what unique aspect causes the neem’s essence to bind with it? These questions are beyond me. I experiment, I record my results, and I experiment again.
“The alchemical response to neem is bramble death. What causes that reaction, whether it is some magical residue that leeches from the bramble root and somehow makes it vulnerable to neem, or some other quality, I can’t say. But it works. And works well. There is a plot of earth that I myself have cleared into the bramble wall. In the time it takes you to clap your hands three times, I cleared more land than this office occupies.”
Mayor and Majister both straightened at the news.
“So quickly?” the Mayor asked.
I nodded vigorously. “Even today, it still shows no sign of regrowth. No seeds, you understand? Not a single one. With my device, you can arm the people and take back farmland. Push back the bramble wall. Save Khaim.”
“Extraordinary,” Scacz said. “Not just push the bramble back. Perhaps even reclaim the heart of the empire. Return to Jhandpara.”
“Exactly.” I couldn’t help feeling relief as their expressions lost their skepticism.
The Mayor had begun to smile widely. He stood. “By the Three Faces of Mara, man, you’ve done something special!”
He motioned for Jiala and me. “Come! The two of you must have a glass of wine. This discovery is worth celebrating.”
He laughed and joked with us as he guided us to a room with great windows that looked out over the city. Khaim jumbled down the hill below us. On the horizon, the sun was slowly sinking. Red sunlight filtered through the smoke and cookfires of lesser Khaim. The half-constructed floating bridge arched across the river like a leaping cat, held in place by great hemp ropes to keep it from sailing away as they worked to extend its skeleton.
“This couldn’t come at a better time,” the Mayor said. “Look out there, alchemist. Lesser Khaim grows every day. And not just from the refugees of Turis and Alacan. Others too, small holders who have been overwhelmed by the bramble. And they bring their magics with them.
“Before they came, we were nearly in balance. We could still cut back enough bramble to offset the bits of magic use. Even the bridge would have been acceptable. But the Alacaners are profligate with their magic, and now the bramble comes hard upon us. Their habits are crushing us. Everyone has some little magic that he or she believes is justified. And then when a bit of bramble roots in a neighbor’s roof beams, who can say who caused it?”
He turned to me. “You know they call me the Jolly Mayor over there? Make fun of me for my scar and my poor humor.” He scowled. “Of course I’m in a poor humor. We fight bramble every day, and every day it defeats us. If this keeps on, we’ll be run out of here in three sixes of years.”
I startled at his words. “Surely it’s not that bad.”
The Mayor raised his caterpillar brows. “Oh yes.” He nodded at Jiala. “Your girl will be part of a river of refugees twice the size of the one we took in from Alacan.” He turned again to look west. “And where will they go then? Mpaias? Loz? Turis is gone to raiders.” He scowled. “Lesser Khaim is just as vulnerable. We barely fought off the raiders’ last attack. Without the bridge, I cannot have a hope of defending that side of the river. And so we spend magic where we would prefer not to, and add to the problem. We’re caught in Halizak’s Prison, for certain.”
His steward arrived with wine and goblets. I looked at the stemmed glasses with curiosity, wondering if I myself had long ago blown their shapes, but then recognized the distinctive mark of Saara Solso. She had improved since I used to compete with her. Another reminder of how long I had been at my project.
The steward paused on the verge of uncorking the wine bottle. “Are you certain about this, Excellency?” he asked.
The Mayor laughed and pointed at me. “This man comes to us with salvation, and you worry about an old vintage?”
The steward looked doubtful, but he uncorked the bottle anyway. A joyful scent filled the room. The Mayor looked at me, eyes twinkling. “You recognize it?” he asked. “The happy bouquet of history.”
I was drawn by the scent, like a child to syrup crackers. Astonished and intoxicated, wide-eyed. “What is it?”
“Wine from the hillsides of Mount Sena, the summer vineyards of the old empire,” Majister Scacz said. “A rare thing, now that those hillsides are covered with bramble. Perhaps a score of bottles still exist, of which our Jolly Mayor possesses, now, two.”
“Don’t call me that.”
Scacz bowed. “The name suits you today, Excellency.”
The Mayor smiled. “For once.”
The steward poured the wine into the glassine bulbs.
“Currant and cinnamon and joy.” Majister Scacz was watching me. “You’re about to taste one of the finest pleasures of the Empire. Served at spring planting, for harvest and for flowering-age ceremonies. The richest merchants had fountains of it in their floating castles, if you can credit such a thing. Magic, make no mistake. The vintner’s genius bound with the majister’s craft.”
He caught Jiala watching, her eyes shining at the scent. “Come, girl. Taste our lost history.” He poured a splash into glass. “Not too much. You’re too small to do more than taste, but I promise you, you will not forget this thing.”
The Mayor held up his glass, ruby and black in the setting sun. “A toast, then, gentlemen. To our future, refound.”
We drank, and the blood of the old empire coursed through our veins and made us giddy. We examined my instrument again, with the Majister and the Mayor making exclamations at the workmanship, at my methods for joining glass to copper, of metallurgy that had yielded a combustion chamber that would not crack with the power of the flames released. We talked of the difficulties of making more balanthasts and speculated how many miles we might clear of the surrounding countryside.
“It takes a great deal of trouble to make one,” Scacz observed.
“Oh yes,” I said fondly, patting the venting tubes that ran along its outer surface and collected the gases of the burning neem.
“How many do you think you can make?”
“At first?” I shrugged. “Perhaps it will take me a month to make another.” The Mayor and Scacz both showed their consternation, and I rushed on. “But I can train other metal workers, other glassblowers. I need not do every piece of work. With others working to my specification. With a larger workshop, many more could be made.”
“We could train the crafters who make the new arquebus,” Scacz said. “Their work is obviously pointless. A weapon that can only be fired once and is so fussy, does not even pack the power of a decent crossbow and is slower still. But this?”
The mayor was nodding. “You’re right. This is worth our effort. Those silly weapons are nothing to this.”
Scacz took another sip of his wine, running his hand over the balanthast. A slow caress. “The potential here… is astonishing.” He looked up at me, inquiring. “I think I would like to test it for a little while. See what it does.”
“Majister?”
Scacz patted me on the back. “Don’t worry. We’ll be very careful with it. But I must examine it a while. Ensure that it truly uses no magic that will come back to haunt us.” He looked at me significantly. “Too many solutions to bramble have simply sought to use magic in some glancing way. To build a fire, for example, and then when the bramble is burned, it turns out that so much magic was used in the making of the fire that the bramble returns twice as strong.”
“But the balanthast doesn’t use magic,” I protested.
Scacz looked at me. “You are a majister to know this, then? In some cases, a man will think he is not using magical principles, because he is ignorant. You yourself acknowledge that something unique is afoot with this device.” He picked up the balanthast. “It’s just for a little while, alchemist. Just to be sure.”
