For Love of the Metal

by Jay Diamant

People can call it what they will—a bond, a debt, a curse—but at heart a geas is just an agreement. An agreement not reliant on easily discarded words but instead on a magical force, pure and immutable, which binds both parties to their obligations.

That was how it was sold to me, at least, but given that the one who sets the terms for the geas is necessarily a wizard of the advanced sort, it’s hard to imagine many practical cases in which the other party knows what they’re signing up for. Certainly not in my case, as I was eight years old at the time.

One thing I did not appreciate then (among many) was how such an agreement takes on a life of its own. A geas is a powerful but narrow force—it knows the parties and the terms but that is all it knows. It will relentlessly steer them toward fulfillment, regardless of how their lives or the world around may change. And while most magic jockeys have the decency to plan for some contingencies in their geas-casting, life has a way of surprising us all.

So having been steered in this manner for much of my life, I am very cognizant of the downsides of such an arrangement. But as a geas generally desires the parties to survive to complete its conditions, it does come with unexpected benefits.

That said, I didn’t need the itching in my head to tell me this card game was turning ugly.

“Does my chair look wobbly to you all? It sure feels wobbly to me.” I was fiddling at one of the legs, which sure enough, was fit to come right off.

“Leave that gods-blooded thing alone and take your damned turn!” Old Gerek wasn’t the most patient of souls, but I had to forgive him his language. If ever I live to be as old as him, I plan to swear morning till night, and if those high-handed gents in their heavens see fit to strike me down, at least it’ll spare me from smelling all day the hideous odor of my own death.

“You smell good today, Gerek,” I said. “More raccoon than skunk.”

That started him off. I kept trying to get that chair leg where I wanted it and hoped that if lightning came down on him, I’d be thrown safely clear from the blast. But I was a bit miffed—Gerek’s a regular here, and he should know enough to take a joke.

There were four angry faces glaring at me when I got the chair to sit as best I could. Could have done without the glaring, of course, but at least they had to glare over a big pile of silver and copper. The scent of that oily metal transported me out this dingy room, the smell filling my eyes with hazy purples and blues, each clink of the metal vibrating between my ears, calming the itch. I love my metal, and it loves me. Must be why it’s so eager to jump from their pockets to mine.

Aside from Gerek, the others I didn’t know. Two brothers from I-don’t-know-where and a gent dressed far too finely to be playing in this ale room. Don’t judge me, it was the only place in town I could still drink, but a man with those clothes should be somewhere much nicer. Of course, when the Laughing Men came from over the water, many old families found their fortunes changed. But my fortune today was looking up—I had many beauties on the table before me, shapely ones, smelling of red and yellow.

I leaned down and inhaled deep. Sour ale, damp wood, grimy paper cardstock. But through it all, clean, clear, the only important thing—the glowing scent of the metal. “You’re all mine, babies,” I said. “You’re coming home with me tonight.”

As I said, everyone can tell when a card game’s about to go wrong. The art is in finding out soon enough to safely make off with your pile. But it’s not just a pile to me. Each coin has a unique gleam, its own particular scent and color. They are each a personality and judge me how you will—I can’t leave good metal behind.

“I keep,” I said, the scent of those reds and yellows still bursting in my eyes.

The well-dressed fella cocked an eyebrow at me. “You aren’t even going to look at them?”

“Lookin’s for chumps, chump,” I said. Sometimes you lose, sometimes you cheat, and sometimes you know you’re lucky. “Who calls?”

Of course they all did. Stupid men, every last one, even the fancyman and his off-the-bottom dealing. Much as I crave the metal, part of me hoped he’d dealt himself something better than what I had.

I doubted it though—I’ve always been lucky, but I didn’t feel lucky when the folks in my village reacted poorly to all the colors and smells I saw. I didn’t feel lucky when they shipped me off to the Academy and I was placed under the geas. I especially didn’t feel lucky when I lost my place among the novices and was assigned permanently to clean latrines.

That last bit—being cast out from learning the secrets, the mysteries, the sacred powers—they all thought was worse than dying. Well, when the Laughing Men arrived, we found out what use they were, all those secrets, mysteries, and sacred powers.

Not much use, it turned out. Not much at all.

But even the Laughing Men needed their latrines cleaned.

As I said, I’ve been lucky.

His cards were good all right. I was busy watching faces, so I didn’t see exactly, but it sure crushed the hopes of those two brothers. Gerek too, but he always looks like that. Their metal was good as gone, whisked away by the wind. But the important thing, the thing I wished I wasn’t seeing, was that the brothers weren’t furious right away. Snarled a bit, but overall, just depressed-like. They didn’t get mad about the metal leaving in fancyman’s purse.

“The blacksmith wins,” I said, my head itching fierce. “Sorry fellas.”

“Show your cards, pig.” That was one of the brothers, Orcus, or maybe it was Armus. Awful hard to care about a man’s name when you’re about to have to knock his teeth in.

Nothing for it now, and the itch was turning into a hum. You see, being lucky is a good thing, but being too lucky is a bad thing. And my whole life, well, I’ve been too lucky about the entire time.

I glanced at the dandy’s cards—run-in crowns, hard to beat. But the roar when I flipped my cards up told me I ran those crowns right off the table.

“Cheater!” That was the other brother. They were both up and they both had knives. That surprised me—I’d pegged them as the type to wave a weapon around if they had one.

“And so what?” I said. “We’re playing cards, ain’t we?” That pulled them up short. What had they expected, a denial? “The two of you have been bouncing signals back and forth all night. Scratch of the ear means a pair, tapping the table is full suit, but it doesn’t do any good when neither one of you knows how to fold.” I pointed at the fancyman, who was trying to pull the innocent-face. “I never played a hand he dealt, except I was trying to give back some of your money.” I glared at the fop. “A run of crowns? Really? You should cheat harder.”

“I say we teach him a lesson,” the man said, and that’s all it took to put their eyes back on me.

The itch was boring through the back of my skull—not helping at this point, geas, message received, thanks. And just when I needed my concentration, the chair was wobbling under me again. “Blasted thing,” I said, reaching down.

Now there’s a way to sit on a chair, where you spread your legs wide, set them up kinda perpendicular, so that with just a tiny fraction of movement, you’re actually squatting, no weight on the chair at all, and that’s what I did. When the first one rushed me, I wrenched that loose leg free, drove upwards with my legs and arms, and caught him right underneath the chin with an uppercut swing.

That stunned him pretty good, but the other one was coming hard from the left side, trying to stab rather than grapple. I deflected his thrust with a hard rap to the wrist. The knife fell but his body kept going and we crashed heads. Or rather, I drove the crown of mine right into the nose of his. Hurt me something fierce, so I knew he wasn’t happy. Followed up with a good hard kick to the slats, just to be sure.

First brother was real mad now. But losing a tooth doesn’t make you a fighter, and any idiot who holds his blade out front gets exactly what he deserves. Faked a swing, grabbed his wrist when he flinched, and gave him a good whack to the temple.

I clucked my tongue over the two fallen men. “You don’t know the first thing about cards, do you? Never play with a man you can’t fight. Elsewise, how’ll you make sure he cheats fair?”

A long rasp of the wrong kind of metal made me realize I’d miscalculated. Or with me, it’s more “noncalculated.” Sure enough, Fancy Man had drawn a Fancy Sword.

“Rapier against chair leg?” he said. “Or do I walk out of here with the money?”

Rapier sure is a nice-sounding name, but it ain’t a nice thing to look at. Three long strides to reach him, and that’s assuming he didn’t jab me six or seven times while I tried it.

“Hey! Hey!” It was Thomas. His house, his public room.

“Thomas, this ain’t your damned business,” I said. “It’s between me and the metal.”

I hate to curse like that, and it would’ve served me right to be smote down right there. I had seen the hilt when we sat down. I guess I had figured anyone drinking here would be more likely to be wearing a hilt than a blade.

Thomas’s wife, kid in arm, appeared on the stairs, so I had to apologize. “Sorry ma’am,” I said, sweet as I could. “Be just a moment.”

Thomas backed away behind the bar and I turned back to King Silk and his dreams of swashbuckling glory.

“Call it a draw?” I offered.

He smiled a thin smile. “I’m afraid not. I know who you are.”

That made me feel even worse. Maybe it had started with the cards, but that’s not what he was after, not really. Desperate men had come after me before, but I never expected someone desperate to be so well-dressed. With these old families, I guess the money runs out before the clothes.

“You know what they call me?” I asked.

He kept his smile. “Half-Mad is what they say. With your reputation I would’ve expected you to be armed.”

“Legged,” I said, waggling it and advancing. He stepped back, real precise-like, good form. That was disappointing. Walking away was the smart plan. He had the advantage and he knew how to handle himself. But I couldn’t leave.

Not when I had promised the metal.

“You know why they call me Half-Mad?”

“I’m beginning to get an idea,” he said.

“A hole no wider than a finger can kill a man, sure enough,” I said. “Kills ’em just as dead as taking off his head. But do you know how long it takes to die from one of them small little punctures?”

“Few minutes, few hours, sometimes a day or two,” the man said. Real bravo here. But he kept backing away, and better, he started to smell like fear.

“So the question is, how long do you think it’s gonna take me to go up the length of that blade and bash your brains in?” I gave him that look where I bug my eyes out and open up a big off-kilter grin. “Hours, days? Or seconds?”

I waited a beat for him to process, then chucked the chair leg at his face. When something’s coming at a man’s head, his hands come up to block it. Even if one of those hands is holding a sword. Enough training and discipline can beat out that reflex, but when a man’s scared, that training takes a vacation and leaves the instincts in charge. And as soon as that hand went up and that deadly tip went down, I was bull rushing forward.

I hit him low with my whole body weight and every ounce of power my legs could give. But surprised, off balance, and with the wall a half-step behind him where he didn’t expect it, he still got me. I crashed him against it so hard I didn’t notice, but after putting his head against the windowsill eight or nine or ten times, I began to feel a cold pain, deep in my left leg. He must’ve cranked his hand back and drove down at one hell of an angle to make that thrust, because there it was, sticking up out of my thigh, the hilt waving in the air. If he’d been a bit quicker, or the angle a bit sharper, he would’ve hit my side and made it a foot and a half into my bowels.

As I said, lucky.

“Would you believe that, Thomas?” I said. “Gone straight through!” I turned to show off the tip poking out the underside of my thigh.

If I pulled the blade out and the blood was spurting, well, that was minutes or hours, depending on the volume. If it was just seeping, that was days, or maybe I’d even live. I didn’t feel like finding out right then, so I kept the blade as steady as I could while I limped my way back to my precious metal.

I thought Gerek might’ve taken some while I was distracted, but every one of my beauties was there, smelling all purple and blue, yellow, red, and ochre. That rainbow of smells intoxicated me as I swept them all into my purse. Gerek was knelt over the brother whose head I’d knocked, but I don’t know why—even I could tell the man was breathing. The one I’d kicked was watching me, knife in hand, but he was on the floor and didn’t look eager to get up.

I took the now-abandoned cloak off the chair, sat, and started ripping it into velvet strips. Thomas came up behind me while I was binding them tight around the wound.

“Vasli, you can’t drink here anymore,” he said.

It figures. “Tom, your beer is terrible. But I’ve got no place else.”

“Vasli, listen to me. You can’t drink here anymore.”

“Tom, don’t say that. Think how badly you’ll feel if you kick me out and I die.”

Usually I can get him to argue, but this time he just shook his head.

I could hear the downed man moving behind me, but I wasn’t having it. Without turning, I pointed my finger. “You’re half-eunuch now. I’ll pull this sword out and finish the job.”

Kicked out or no, Tom was decent enough to help me to the door. I was moving awkwardly, but that humming clink in my purse made it all better. “I love you, babies,” I said, patting them. Tonight I would take them out, each one, the old friends and the new. I would memorize their individual gleams, their scents, their textures.

The chill in my leg got worse in the night air. Time to hobble to someone who owned a needle. Bailey, perhaps, or maybe Pell Thorn. Thorn had a worse reputation, but Bailey’d done a lousy job on me last time.

I looked back at Tom. “Half-Mad’s Rest, you should call this place,” I said. “Make yourself famous.”

“All-Mad is more like it,” he snorted.

The metal sang to me from my pouch, covering over the itch. We’d done okay tonight, me and the geas. I used to talk to it, but that made me sad and I had to stop. It’s not like a person after all—I can’t explain that there’s no amount of money we can gather to repay my debt, that there’s no one left to repay it to. The Laughing Men made sure of that. But sometimes, sad as it is, I feel like I understand it. After all, we both love the metal.

I would have to part with some of it, I knew. Surgeons ain’t cheap, not the ones who work at this time of night. The itch would take a nasty turn, would burn white-hot behind my eyes, like it did whenever I lost any metal. So maybe I could let the geas have its way and skip the surgeon. Stop running, stop trying to stay ahead of them, leave the struggle to men like those naive brothers or that desperate aristocrat.

I could find a bed to lie in, pull the sword out myself, and whether the blood spurts or trickles, at least I wouldn’t be running. I could cover myself with my babies, my trusted companions and my mysterious new joys, smell them, feel them, taste them, and together, we could wait for the Laughing Men to find us.

I turned toward Pell Thorn’s. My head was already aching, and he was closer.

“You stupid geas,” I said. “If it wasn’t for me, I don’t know how you’d get along.”

Hell, I was sick of this town anyway.