“ENOUGH!” boomed the Gage. A fist thudded into his face; he caught the half-made thing’s arm and used its own momentum to slam it to the ground.
The rod detonated; the Dead Man twisted to one side. Razors whisked his face and shaved a nick into his ear. Blood welled hotly as the spear embedded itself in the wall.
With an almighty crunch, the Gage rose from the remains of the half-made thing, its skull dangling from his hand. He was dented and disheveled, his robe torn away so the round machined joints of knees and elbows, the smooth segmented body, were plainly visible.
He tossed the wreckage of the half-made thing’s head at Attar, who laughed and knocked it aside with the hammer. He swung it in lazy loops, one-handed, tossed it to the other. “Come on, faceless man. What one Wizard makes, another can take apart.”
The Gage stopped where he stood. He planted his feet on the sagging floor. He turned his head and looked directly at the Dead Man.
The Dead Man caught the amethyst sphere when the Gage tossed it to him.
“A soul catcher? Did you not hear me say I am soulless? That priest’s bauble can do me no harm.”
“Well,” said the Gage. “Then you won’t object to us trying.”
He stepped forward, walking up the slope of the broken floor. He swung his fist; Attar parried with the hammer as if the blow had no force behind it at all. The Gage shook his fist and blew across it. There was a dent across his knuckles now.
“Try harder,” the Wizard said.
He kept his back to the corner, his hammer dancing between his hands. The Gage reached in, was deflected. Reached again. “It’s not lack of a soul that makes you a monster. That, beast, is your humanity.”
The Wizard laughed. “Poor thing. Have you been chasing me for Cog’s sake all these months?”
“Not for Cog’s sake.” The Gage almost sounded as if he smiled. “And I have been hunting you for years. I was a potter; my lover was a sculptor. Do you even remember him? Or are the lives you take, the worlds of brilliance you destroy, so quickly forgotten?”
The Wizard’s eyes narrowed, his head tipping as if in concentration. “I might recall.”
Again the Gage struck. Again, the Wizard parried. His lips pursed as if to whistle and a shimmer crossed his face. A different visage appeared in its wake: curly-haired, darker-complected. Young and handsome, in an unexceptional sort of way. “This one? What was the name? Does it make you glad to see his face one last time, before I take you too? Though your art was not much, as I recall—but what can you expect of—”
The Gage lunged forward, a sharp blow of the Wizard’s hammer snapping his arm into his head. The force knocked his upper body aside. But he took the blow, and the one that followed, and kept coming. He closed the gap.
He caught Attar’s hammer hand and bent it back until the bones of his arm parted with a wet, wrenching sound.
“His name was Abbas!”
The Wizard gasped and went to his knees. With a hard sidearm swing, the Dead Man stepped in and smashed the amethyst sphere against his head, and pressed it there.
It burst in his opening hand, a shower of violet glitter. Particles swirled in the air, ran in the Wizard’s open mouth, his nostrils and ears, swarmed his eyes until they stared blank and lavender.
When the Dead Man closed his hand again, with a vortex of shimmer the sphere re-coalesced.
Blank-faced, Attar slumped onto his left side, dangling from his shattered arm. The Gage opened his hand and let the body fall. “He’s not dead. Just really soulless now.”
“As soon as I find my sword I’ll repair that oversight,” the Dead Man said. He held out the amethyst. Blood streaked down his cheek, dripped hot from his ear.
“Keep it.” The Gage looked down at his naked armature. “I seem to have left my pockets on the floor.”
While the Dead Man found his blade, the Gage picked his way around the borders of the broken floor. He moved from shelf to shelf, lifting up sculptures, books of poetry, pottery vases—and reverentially, one at a time, crushing them with his dented hands.
Wiping blood from his sword, the Dead Man watched him work. “You want some help with that?”
The Gage shook his head.
“That’s how you knew he didn’t live downstairs.”
“Hmm?”
“No art.”
The Gage shrugged.
“You looking for something in particular?”
“Yes.” The Gage’s big hand enfolded a small object. He held it for a moment, cradled to his breast, and bowed his scratched mirror over it. Then he pressed his hands together and twisted, and when he pulled them apart, a scatter of wood shreds sprinkled the floor. “Go free, love.”
When he looked up again, the Dead Man was still staring out the window. “Help me break the rest of these? So the artists can rest?”
“Also so our friend here doesn’t grow his head back? Soul or no soul?”
“Yeah,” the Gage answered. “That too.”
OUTSIDE, THE DEAD Man fixed his veil and pushed his dangling sleeve up his arm, examining the strained threads and tears.
“Come on,” the Gage said. “I’ll buy you a new coat.”
“But I like this one.”
“Then let’s go to a bar.”
This one had better wine and cleaner clientele. As a result, they and the servers both gave the Dead Man and the Gage a wider berth, and the Dead Man kept having to go up to the bar.
“Well,” said the Dead Man. “Another mystery solved. By a clever man among clever men.”
“And you are no doubt the cleverest.”
The Dead Man shrugged. “I had help. I don’t suppose you’d consider a partnership?”
The Gage interlaced his hands around the foot of his cup. After a while, he said, “Serhan.”
“Yes, Gage?”
“My name was Khatijah.”
Over his veil, the Dead Man’s eyes did not widen. Instead he nodded with satisfaction, as if he had won some bet with himself. “You’re a woman.”
“I was,” said the Gage. “Now I’m a Gage.”
“It’s supposed to be a selling point, isn’t it? Become a Faceless Man and never be uncertain, abandoned, forsaken again.”
“You sound like you’ve given it some thought.”
The Dead Man regarded the Gage. The Gage tilted his featureless head down, giving the impression that he regarded the stem of his cup and the tops of his metal hands.
“And yet here you are,” the Dead Man said.
“And yet here I am.” The Gage shrugged.
“Stop that constant shrugging,” the Dead Man said.
“When you do,” said the Gage.
ONE LAST, GREAT ADVENTURE
ELLEN KUSHNER & YSABEAU S. WILCE
THE HERO IS fashionably late to the ball. He saunters through the ballroom doors, shrugging off the footman’s offer to divest him of velvet cloak and magnificently feathered hat. At the top of the stairs, he pauses, surveys the throngs below him, one negligent hand propped on his sword pommel, the other propped on the curve of his hip. He is smiling, as well a hero should.
Although the Hero needs no introduction, the steward introduces him anyway, bellowing over the vigorous music, the vigorous conversation. Those party-goers who arrived unfashionably on time turn away from the music, away from the conversation, and begin to applaud. Who would not applaud such a man, who slew the Lamia of Jengti in single combat, who turned back the invading hordes of Xana, and who, during the bloating sickness, crossed the Ice Ocean to bring back medicine for the city? The people of the City State Asteria love him. He has just returned from a three month campaign up in the highlands, helping their ally, the Sarifather of Irk, rid his kingdom of a pesky dragon, and he’s been missed.