Prodigal Steelwielder (Seals of the Duelists Book 3) (32 page)

Bayan fixed his former sponsor with a direct look. “Isos Sarantis and Emperor Jaap are trying to kill each other.”

Philo’s blue eyes widened in shock, and he tried to dart past Bayan to reach the doors. “What? Why aren’t you stopping it?”

Bayan caught Philo in a soft net of air, returning him and his scrabbling sandals to their original position. “I don’t want to stop it, Philo. And I’m not going to let anyone else stop it, either. Jaap and I failed to reach the agreement I was hoping for.”

A bloodcurdling cry issued from behind Bayan. Philo’s eyes snapped to the doors, and a whimper escaped his mouth. “What… what did you ask for?”

Bayan held up a hand and willed a tightly rolled scroll onto his palm. Philo snatched it and snapped it open. His plump lips moved silently while his eyes scanned the document’s sections and requirements. “You can’t be serious. He’ll never sign this.”

Bayan shrugged one shoulder. “The fight behind me would seem to prove you correct. Now, if you will excuse me, I do need to return to the Academy and assist with our own rebuilding projects.”

He attempted to step past the eunuch, but Philo grasped his sleeve. “Wait, please! Please, you can’t let him die. He is my emperor. I have served him all my life, all of it that matters. Please, Bayan. I’ve never asked you for a single favor, but now, I beg you. Give me my emperor’s life.”

Bayan paused, considering. Several deep, resonating thuds reached his ears from within the receiving chamber.

Philo’s head whipped toward the sealed doors, and his breath came in desperate gasps. “
Please
.”

Bayan nodded. “Then you sign it, Philo. You have the authority to sign new laws into existence in the event of the emperor’s death.”

“But, but he’s not dead yet, is he? I can still hear…”

Bayan’s eyes flashed. “Until you open those doors, you won’t really know for sure. Sign the contract, and I will unseal the doors so that you can find out whether you are right. Do we have an understanding, Philo?”

Sweat formed at the edges of Philo’s wig. “I need a pen.”

Bayan crafted one for him, and Philo snatched it. He pressed the scroll against the nearest wall and scribbled his name at the bottom. Bayan rested a hand against his shoulder. “You have always been a loyal man, Philo. I respect that, and I respect you, even if we don’t agree anymore. I wish you well.”

He turned and strode across the tiled foyer. With a snap, he shattered the doors behind him then tunneled through reality back to his new home.

He stepped through the portal onto the fresh green grass of the new Academy grounds. The black ring snapped shut behind him, cutting off Philo’s screams for a chanter.

A score of days whirled past before the world slowed down long enough for Bayan to take stock. The First Singer arrived to offer her guarded felicitations on his new status as her equal. Tala accompanied her and let him and Calder know that Sanaala—and all of her copies—had been lost in the conflagration that consumed the campus. Bayan merely nodded—so many fates were worse than death, and Sanaala had had the misfortune of experiencing one of them dozens of times.

He visited his family farm. A meeting with his father and Mindo resulted in the departure of the red sint from Gamay’s runrock pillar. Mindo’s petitioners were devastated, but no one—not the emperor, and certainly not a paranoid little godling—was going to hold Bayan’s family hostage. The sint retreated peacefully to the foothills beneath the Temple of Ten Thousand Harmonies, and Mindo returned to his duties on the farm. But Bayan knew the red sint wasn’t done with him yet. It would bide its time. And so would Bayan.

When he returned to the new Academy campus, situated in the valley where it had been founded, everything seemed both strange and perfectly familiar, as if that was always how it was meant to be.

The campus’s valley layout had been completed, and all vital buildings had been constructed by eager, if not accurate, duelists interested in becoming trade duelists. Bayan stood in the doorway of his shiny new Headmaster’s office and looked down the valley with a smile. The thought that duelists had a choice of careers for the first time in history was a curious one. They would no longer serve a score of years in the duel dens unless they chose to, not when there was so much work to be done around the empire—work made easier with magic as the main tool in the box.

Bayan waited impatiently for Eward to return from his latest emissary mission, this time to Gallenglaas. A small enclave of trade duelists was based in the provincial capital of Baghanir, and Bayan hoped that Eward, with his irrepressible eagerness, could convince some of them to mentor the students interested in taking up their career. It was a convenient side effect that Eward’s recruitment around the empire resulted in word of the Academy’s newfound independence from imperial control spreading like Firewhirl spells.

Tarin landed beside Bayan with a puff of air. “Flame Instructor Tarin reporting that our new Flame arena is decorated and polished. We just finished putting down a nice thick layer of runrock pebbles, the smooth ones like you have in Balanganam, not those old, scratchy ones we used to have.” She nodded decisively. “I’ll make sure the new students know how poshy they have it. In fact, you should make the difference between then and now something that de Rood—I mean Instructor Theo—teaches every new class.”

Bayan grinned. “Leave a message with my secretary. I’ll make sure she tells our new history teacher you said so.”

Tarin snorted. “Kiwani’s going to agree with me, and you know it. And I’ll tell her you called her a secretary. Good luck sitting down for the next score of days after she spikes your arse.”

“Speaking of new students, do you want a hand in the recruiting, or do you want to spend your time here on campus adjusting to your new role?”

Tarin arched an eyebrow. “The Mistress of Flame does not recruit. Just tell the potential students that I’m here. They should come to me. And if they don’t, I’ll hunt them down.”

Bayan let an easy smile slip across his features, but the darker turn in Tarin’s personality of late concerned him. Encountering witten Oost again had broken some festering imbalance loose in her soul—a problem she didn’t seem to notice.

Taban had, but he didn’t share Bayan’s concern, content to believe that she’d eventually balance out again, as long as she had him and Kipri in her life. Though he hadn’t taken a teaching role, Taban had already claimed an indispensable position on campus. “You won’t mind if I send Taban out for recruiting now and again, then?”

Her eyebrows rose, pale red in the sunlight. “Taban? I’m sure I don’t know anyone by that name. And I believe he wants to be called Master Solahan, High Merchant of the Duelist Academy. So, yes, drag him away all you like. But I warn you, it will only give him an opportunity to extend his information network. If you don’t watch him, he’s going to become some unholy combination of Ignaas witten Oost and Philo.”

Bayan’s darkness met and more than matched Tarin’s. “Exactly so.”

Tarin shifted to lean against Bayan’s wide door frame. “Was it wise to let Aleida return home?”

Bayan gave her an odd look. “She is with child.”

“I refer to her mental condition. She’s… different. Off squint. Not herself anymore. Bringing Murchadh back changed her on some deep level. Don’t you see it?”

Bayan raised his eyebrows. “Of course I see it. That’s why I let her go home.”

“And you don’t think that’s too far away?”

“I’m not sure the students will understand her. In fact, seeing what she’s becoming could frighten them. I need more time to understand her, so that I can explain our journey more clearly to the students. I can’t see where she’s gone yet, and I’m only a half a step behind her.”
If that.

Tarin was looking at him funy. “Again in Waarden, please.”

Bayan licked his lips. “Just a theory I have. If it looks like it’s going to be accurate, I’ll let you know.” He stepped down to the grass then looked up. Though invisible to his eyes, his magic told him the sky barrier was firmly in place. The spell was new, inspired by the
cetechupes
: multiple duelists around campus sharing the same identical hex avatar, created during a hex bond.
This campus will never fall again.

“I need to return to the Flame arena and assign my students their next round of tasks. Do you have any messages you want me to deliver while I’m out?”

Bayan focused on Tarin once more. “Have Tala coordinate with Odjin in arranging transport to campus for potioneers. He’s told me that many of the younger ones want to learn more about savantism, and several are ready to sign up for Odjin’s alternative casting classes.”

Tarin vanished in a swirl of smiles and flame, and Bayan decided to take a perfectly ordinary stroll down the campus using nothing but his own two feet. As he walked, he felt the impact of each step bearing him slowly yet inexorably toward his goal. High in the sky to his left lay the space the Academy had recently occupied. It existed only in his memory now, and he would never walk its paths and tunnels again.

A memory caught at his mind.
My first night in a solitary. The moon was full, and I had one of the best views in the world from my tiny, open-air prison. I thought I could just step out into the night and stride across the world. I thought I was the angriest person in the world. Now that younger me seems idealistic and hopeful. This new world is darker, but not because of my anger. I have leapt across its face, passing thousands of leagues with a single step. But I haven’t found peace, only more conflict, more greed, more hate. Was I ever really just a young farm boy? I used to have dreams of greatness, but now the life I used to live is the one that feels like the dream.

His amble across the grass came to an abrupt halt as Kiwani appeared in a flash of black before him. Her eyes glittered with dark promise and mischief. “You have a visitor, Headmaster. You’re going to want to see him.”

Bayan followed her back through her portal to the new Hall of Seals at the mouth of the valley—Eward’s idea for a welcoming gesture to visitors and potential students alike. They stepped through onto the great seal, faithfully recreated in gems and gold on the broad courtyard before the front entrance. As he and Kiwani crossed its glittering surface, she said, “I don’t know why you wanted to save this one element out of all the aspects of the old campus.”

He took her hand and squeezed it. “I didn’t do it for my benefit. People need symbols.”

Kiwani tipped her head toward him in a gesture of acquiescence. “If that’s what you want. It is your campus, after all.”

Bayan willed the doors open. “You don’t think of this as your campus?”

She paused and met his eyes. “This may be your campus, Bayan, darling. But that’s not what it means to me. You dedicate yourself to the students, present and future, that will walk through your doors. You want to make sure they’re treated fairly, as you never were, as none of us were. That’s
your
goal. I support you in it, and I see that it needs to be done. But it’s not my goal. It never has been, and it never will be.”

A faint frisson of worry blew through Bayan’s soul. His hexmates had once been so close. “What is it you want, then?”

Kiwani offered a beatific smile. “I want what I have always wanted, Bayan. To go down in history. And I don’t know how I’m going to do that, exactly. Only that I’ll find a way.”

Bayan’s brow furrowed. “And you don’t think that what we just accomplished is enough to tattoo your name on every Waarden child’s hand?”

“I want more. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you when I get it. I expect you’ll be right next to me, one way or another. Now come, your distinguished guest is waiting.”

Disconcerted, Bayan needed a moment to smooth his beads into order before he followed Kiwani into the great hall. He had ordered the dais and its surrounding benches to be constructed more inclusively instead of employing six separate sections, one per element. As he walked down an aisle between the semicircular benches, he spotted a figure on the black dais, his back to Bayan. His visitor studied the seals hanging on a large white ribbon on the wall.

His visitor must have heard his approach, because without turning, he asked, “What does it mean, this highest symbol? Its significance eludes me.”

The man’s affected lisp and accent shouted of the Corona, and his regal attire meant he could only be one man: Baltanarmo,
Yl Senyecho
himself. Bayan’s eyes flicked to Kiwani. “Are you trying to tell me that the emperor of the Corona just popped in, alone, for a visit?”

Kiwani blithely shook her head. “No, darling. He brought a thousand guards, diplomats, petitioners, and servants with him. Calder made them all wait off the campus while I fetched you.”

Bayan sniffed in amusement. “Calder is getting a little above himself, don’t you think, now that he’s walking around with a trapped sint in his pocket?”

Yl Senyecho
turned, and his official smile of greeting slipped into concern. “The scarred little man controls a god?”

Bayan floated to the dais, and Kiwani joined him. “I won’t tell him you called him that, but yes. Why do you think we were powerful enough to defeat your casters?”

Yl Senyecho
nodded sagely. “Of course. The very gods fight for you. This explains much.”

Bayan grinned. “Some of them, yes. Others, as you know, fought for your side, and still others tried to defeat us for their own reasons. And yet, here we stand.”

Baltanarmo gulped as if suddenly realizing he shared the room with a pair of predators. “I have come on a mission of peace, I assure you. My conflict was never with the Academy of Duelism, but with your emperor.”

“He is not my emperor any longer.”

Baltanarmo bobbed his head. His front-heavy crown slipped down his forehead. “Yes, that is why I have come. I am hoping to avoid further conflict with you, since you have declared yourself an independent force, and one to be greatly respected. I will give you my word, and any tributes and assurances you require, that I shall never send my people against you or those under your protection. I will even furnish your Academy most generously from my own coffers and storehouses, with any exotic materials you require, whether they be building goods, foods, political associations, merchant connections, or more manpower. All I request in return is that you let the events of the past remain a subject for history books instead of table conversation.”

Bayan met Kiwani’s gaze. She shook her head. He looked at the emperor again. “Are you offering me slaves? Servants bound to my will for life?”

Yl Senyecho
seemed to realize he had erred. He swallowed again and blinked several times. “No, no. Forgive me, this language, it is new to my inexpert tongue. I offer you paid employees with citizenship in my domain. If there is anything you require, let them take care of the matter for you. In any matters you wish to discuss with me, or those in my empire, they may be your emissaries.”

“And will these individuals be casters?” Bayan asked.

Baltanarmo hesitated. “If you wish it so, yes.”

“Yes. I would like half a dozen of your casters to be permanently stationed here at my academy, under my employ. I want them to teach my duelists their ways. In return, we can teach them ours. I hope you’ll find this solution acceptable.”

Baltanarmo’s full cheeks softened in surprise. “You wish to share magics?”

Bayan gave him his blackest smile. “As a form of insurance against any future conflicts. Your casters may retain citizenship in the Corona, but they will be subject to the laws we establish here. And I would reserve the right to send any one of them home to you in exchange for a replacement should they fail to follow said laws. Would you be interested in hosting any of my duelists at your training facilities? I’m sure I have several students who are ambitious enough to set aside our differences and learn from the source.”

Baltanarmo brightened and gave Bayan a gracious nod. “You are most generous and wise, Headmaster.”