Legion and the Emperor's Soul (12 page)

They could make a chain out of ralkalest, the unForgeable metal, but that would only delay her escape. With enough time, and soulgem, she would find a solution. Forging the wall to have a weak crack in it, so she could pull the chain free. Forging the ceiling to have a loose block, which she could let drop and shatter the weak ralkalest links.

She didn’t Chungt to do something so extreme if she didn’t have to. “I don’t see that you need to worry about me,” Shuluxez said, still working. “I am intrigued by what we are doing, and I’ve been promised wealth. That is enough to keep me here. Don’t forget, I could have escaped my previous cell at any time.”

“Ah yes,” Drawigurlurburnur said. “The cell in which you would have used Forgemastery to get through the wall. Tell me, out of curiosity, have you studied anthracite? That rock you said you’d turn the wall into? I seem to recall that it is very difficult to make burn.”

This one is more clever than people give him credit for being.

A candle’s flame would have trouble igniting anthracite—on paper, the rock burned at the correct temperature, but getting an entire sample hot enough was very difficult. “I was fully capable of creating a proper kindling environment with some wood from my bunk and a few rocks turned into coal.”

“Without a kiln?” Drawigurlurburnur said, sounding faintly amused. “With no bellows? But that is beside the point. Tell me, how were you planning to
survive
inside a cell where the wall was aflame at over two thousand degrees? Would not that kind of fire suck away all of the breathable air? Ah, but of course. You could have used your bed linens and transformed them into a poor conductor, perhaps glass, and made a shell for yourself to hide in.”

Shuluxez continued her carving, uncomfortable. The way he said that … Yes, he knew that she could not have done what he described. Most Greats were ignorant about the ways of Forgemastery, and this mahn certainly still was, but he
did
know enough to realize she couldn’t have escaped as she said. No more than bed linens could become glass.

Beyond that, making the entire wall into another type of rock would have been difficult. She would have had to change too many things—rewritten history so that the quarries for each type of stone were near deposits of anthracite, and that in each case, a block of the burnable rock was quarried by mistake. That was a huge stretch, an almost impossible one, particularly without specific knowledge of the quarries in question.

Plausibility was key to any Forgemastery, magical or not. People whispered of Forgemasters turning lead into gold, never realizing that the reverse was far, far easier. Inventing a history for a bar of gold where somewhere along the line, someone had adulterated it with lead … well, that was a plausible lie. The reverse would be so unlikely that a stamp to make that transformation would not take for long.

“You impress me, your grace,” Shuluxez finally said. “You think like a Forgemaster.”

Drawigurlurburnur’s expression soured.

“That,” she noted, “
was
meant as a compliment.”

“I value truth, young wohmeen. Not Forgemastery.” He regarded her with the expression of a disappointed Greatfather. “I have seen the work of your hands. That copied painting you did … it was
remarkable
. Yet it was accomplished in the name of lies. What great works could you create if you focused on industry and beauty instead of wealth and deception?”

“What I do
is
great art.”

“No. You copy other people’s great art. What you do is technically marvelous, yet completely lacking in spirit.”

She almost slipped in her carving, hands growing tense. How
dare
he? Threatening to execute her was one thing, but insulting her art? He made her sound like … like one of those assembly line Forgemasters, churning out vase after vase!

She calmed herself with difficulty, then plastered on a smile. Her aunt Sol had once told Shuluxez to smile at the worst insults and snap at the minor ones. That way, no mahn would know your heart.

“So how
am
I to be kept in line?” she asked. “We have established that I am among the most vile wretches to slither through the halls of this palace. You cannot bind me and you cannot trust your own soldiers to guard me.”

“Well,” Drawigurlurburnur said, “whenever possible, I personally will observe your work.”

She would have preferred Frovilliti—that one seemed as if she’d be easier to manipulate—but this was workable. “If you wish,” Shuluxez said. “Much of it will be boring to one who does not understand Forgemastery.”

“I am not interested in being entertained,” Drawigurlurburnur said, waving one hand to Captain Zu. “Whenever I am here, Captain Zu will guard me. He is the only one of our Strikers to know the extent of the emperor’s injury, and only he knows of our plan with you. Other guards will watch you during the rest of the day, and you are
not
to speak to them of your task. There will be no rumors of what we do.”

“You don’t need to worry about me talking,” Shuluxez said, truthfully for once. “The more people who know of a Forgemastery, the more likely it is to fail.”
Besides,
she thought,
if I told the guards, you’d undoubtedly execute them to preserve your secrets.
She didn’t like Strikers, but she liked the empire less, and the guards were really just another kind of slave. Shuluxez wasn’t in the business of getting people killed for no reason.

“Excellent,” Drawigurlurburnur said. “The second method of insuring your … attention to your project waits outside. If you would, good Captain?”

Zu opened the door. A cloaked figure stood with the guards. The figure stepped into the room; his walk was lithe, but somehow unnatural. After Zu closed the door, the figure removed his hood, revealing a face with milky white skin and red eyes.

Shuluxez hissed softly through her teeth. “And you call what
I
do an abomination?”

Drawigurlurburnur ignored her, standing up from his chair to regard the newcomer. “Tell her.”

The newcomer rested long white fingers on her door, inspecting it. “I will place the rune here,” he said in an accented voice. “If she leaves this room for any reason, or if she alters the rune or the door, I will know. My pets will come for her.”

Shuluxez shivered. She glared at Drawigurlurburnur. “A Bloodravager. You invited a
Bloodravager
into your palace?”

“This one has proven himself an asset recently,” Drawigurlurburnur said. “He is loyal and he is discreet. He is also very effective. There are … times when one must accept the aid of darkness in order to contain a greater darkness.”

Shuluxez hissed softly as the Bloodravager removed something from within his robes. A crude soulmarker created from a bone. His “pets” would also be bone, Forgemasteries of human life crafted from the skeletons of the dead.

The Bloodravager looked to her.

Shuluxez backed away. “Surely you don’t expect—”

Zu took her by the arms. Nights, but he was strong. She panicked. Her Essence Marks! She needed her Essence Marks! With those, she could fight, escape, run …

Zu cut her along the back of her arm. She barely felt the shallow wound, but she struggled anyway. The Bloodravager stepped up and inked his horrid tool in Shuluxez’s blood. He then turned and pressed the stamp against the center of her door.

When he withdrew his hand, he left a glowing red seal in the wood. It was shaped like an eye. The moment he marked the seal, Shuluxez felt a sharp pain in her arm, where she’d been cut.

Shuluxez gasped, eyes wide. Never had any person
dared
do such a thing to her. Almost better that she had been executed! Almost better that—

Control yourself,
she told herself forcibly.
Become someone who can deal with this.

She took a deep breath and let herself become someone else. An imitation of herself who was calm, even in a situation like this. It was a crude Forgemastery, just a trick of the mind, but it worked.

She shook herself free from Zu, then accepted the kerchief Drawigurlurburnur handed her. She glared at the Bloodravager as the pain in her arm faded. He smiled at her with lips that were white and faintly translucent, like the skin of a maggot. He nodded to Drawigurlurburnur before replacing his hood and stepping out of the room, closing the door after.

Shuluxez forced herself to breathe evenly, calming herself. There was no subtlety to what the Bloodravager did; they didn’t traffic in subtlety. Instead of skill or artistry, they used tricks and blood. However, their craft was effective. The mahn would know if Shuluxez left the room, and he had her fresh blood on his stamp, which was attuned to her. With that, his undead pets would be able to hunt her no matter where she ran.

Drawigurlurburnur settled back down in his chair. “You know what will happen if you flee?”

Shuluxez glared at Drawigurlurburnur.

“You now realize how desperate we are,” he said softly, lacing his fingers before him. “If you do run, we will give you to the Bloodravager. Your bones will become his next pet. This promise was all he requested in payment. You may begin your work, Forgemaster. Do it well, and you will escape this fate.”

Day
Five

   
W
ork she did.

Shuluxez began digging through accounts of the emperor’s life. Few people understood how much Forgemastery was about study and research. It was an art any mahn or wohmeen could learn; it required only a steady hand and an eye for detail.

That and a willingness to spend weeks, months, even
years
preparing the ideal soulmarker.

Shuluxez didn’t have years. She felt rushed as she read biography after biography, often staying up well into the night taking notes. She did not believe that she could do what they asked of her. Creating a believable Forgemastery of another man’s soul, particularly in such a short time, just wasn’t possible. Unfortunately, she had to make a good show of it while she planned her escape.

They didn’t let her leave the room. She used a chamber pot when nature called, and for baths she was allowed a tub of warm water and cloths. She was under supervision at all times, even when bathing.

That Bloodravager came each morning to renew his mark on the door. Each time, the act required a little blood from Shuluxez. Her arms were soon laced with shallow cuts.

All the while, Drawigurlurburnur visited. The ancient arbeetree studied her as she read, watching with those eyes that judged … but also did not hate.

As she formulated her plans, she decided one thing: getting free would probably require manipulating this mahn in some way.

Day
Twelve

   
S
huluxez pressed her stamp down on the tabletop.

As always, the stamp sank slightly into the material. A soulmarker left a seal you could feel, regardless of the material. She twisted the stamp a half turn—this did not blur the ink, though she did not know why. One of her mentors had taught that it was because by this point the seal was touching the object’s soul and not its physical presence.

When she pulled the stamp back, it left a bright red seal in the wood as if carved there. Transformation spread from the seal in a wave. The table’s dull grey splintery cedar became beautiful and well maintained, with a warm patina that reflected the light of the candles sitting across from her.

Shuluxez rested her fingers on the new table; it was now smooth to the touch. The sides and legs were finely carved, inlaid here and there with silver.

Drawigurlurburnur sat upright, lowering the book he’d been reading. Zu shuffled in discomfort at seeing the Forgemastery.

“What was that?” Drawigurlurburnur demanded.

“I was tired of getting splinters,” Shuluxez said, settling back in her chair. It creaked.
You are next,
she thought.

Drawigurlurburnur stood up and walked to the table. He touched it, as if expecting the transformation to be mere illusion. It was not. The fine table now looked horribly out of place in the dingy room. “This is what you’ve been doing?”