"Magic!" Arizun chirped at his elbow, handing him the tamping brush. "True sorcery!"
"Natural philosophy," Sulun corrected him, plying the brush. "Sorcery deals with spiritual forces. I deal only with material—Hoi, Omis! It's snagged on something!" He poked it again with the brush.
Omis took the tamp into his hands and tried it, then pulled it out "Obstruction," he said gloomily. "About halfway down the barrel. And I left my tools back at the big house."
"Let me." Zeren drew his sword in a quick, smooth motion, and poked its satiny grey length down the tube. "Ah, there. Soft . . . Just a second. Ah, there!" He pulled the sword out, held it up, and displayed the blackish lump stuck on the end. "What in the hells is this?"
Sulun rolled his sleeves up above his bony elbows and took a close look at the thing.
"Mmm, some sulfur? Perhaps not mixed smoothly in the grinding?"
He shot a look at his apprentices. Twelve-year-old Arizun looked indignantly innocent. Yanados shrugged and shook her head, denying responsibility. Doshi looked hangdog guilty, but that proved nothing: Doshi always looked guilty when anything went wrong, no matter whose fault it really was.
Sulun studied the mass again. "Huh, no . . . I think its a piece of charred leather from the canister. Ah, that would mean that the stones weren't contained. They spread in a wider pattern. No wonder the buoy went down!"
Omis, busy with the tamping brush, didn't notice. "It goes all the way down now," he announced. "Do we try again?"
"Yes." Sulun straightened up and reached for the bag of firepowder. "We've got to. The whole point is, we've got to be sure this design holds repeated firings."
"Better than the last one, anyway," Zeren muttered, shaking the lump off his sword as he headed for the safety trench. He called back, "That one peeled like an orange at the second blast!"
The apprentices fled. Omis took cover beside Zeren in the trench. This time Sulun took care to have the reed ready, lit it off the tinder, closed the tinderbox, and put it away before he lit the fuse. Once more he shouted warning and ran for the trench. Once more the door banged, everyone ducked, watched, and waited.
Nothing happened.
They waited longer.
Still nothing happened. Smothered chuckles from behind the wall and opened shutters above told that the neighbors were listening. A knot of local boys leaned out the windows of the left-hand apartment building, throwing out catcalls, jeers, and one or two empty jugs.
Still nothing.
"Hex," Zeren whispered. "Dammit, the neighbors—"
"Hex, hell. Hangfire," Sulun whispered. "It hasn't caught yet, that's all, it's just smouldering."
"Hex," Zeren said.
Possibility. If the neighbors got a pool together, they might afford someone potent enough.
Or if their master Shibari's fortunes were truly slipping . . .
Sulun ran his fingers through his wiry birds-nest of dark hair, bit his lip, then scrambled for the rim of the trench.
Omis grabbed him by the tail of his tunic. "Uh, I wouldn't go out there yet."
Sulun sank back again, unnerved. Hex or not, dealing with a smouldering waxed wick in the touch hole was not a comfortable situation.
And even a little hex could overbalance an already bad -situation.
With firepowder involved . . .
"Oh, piss on it!" Zeren picked up a stone from the bottom of the trench and threw it toward the iron tube, striking it neatly at the base.
The bombard tube exploded. With the loudest roar yet, the flames and smoke erupted from the mouth and center of the bombard, throwing stones, leather shreds, and splinters of hot iron skyward. Quick thunder echoed off the surrounding walls. Dark orange flame lit the ground and the weeds of the garden court, making new shadows where the sun should have painted light. Thick yellow-white smoke rolled outward, filling the yard with heavy, dry mist that made everyone cough.
The echoes faded, leaving a shocked silence. Even the river birds were struck dumb. Then shutters opened in the haze of sulfur reek and a ragged cheer went up from the neighbors, followed by applause, more catcalls, whistles, and laughter from the apartment buildings. The southside neighbor threw a whole cabbage over the wall.
Sulun and Omis climbed gloomily out of the trench and plodded over to study the damage. Zeren didn't bother to watch them. There was no bombard. There was no firepowder. Therefore there was no danger. The apprentices had figured it: the house door had opened. Zeren tromped toward it, collared Doshi, clapped some copper coins into his palm, and sent him off to fetch some wine at the tavern on the corner. Arizun, after a moments look at the disaster, scampered back into the house to get clean cups. Yanados, out in the yard, commented to anyone listening that the cabbage was big enough and clean enough to make part of a consolation supper.
The neighbors, seeing victory, slammed shutters against the stink of smoke and went to gossip.
The bombard tube was ripped open along one side and bent by the force of the explosion. Ragged shards of iron jutted from the gaping tear, and the wooden mount was splintered.
"May as well use this for firewood," Sulun noted, picking up the shattered mount.
"It was the seam," Omis said gloomily. "I've tried everything I can think of, or ever heard of, and nothing holds. Maybe it was a hex."
"Hex or firepowder, it'll still blow at the weakest point. It's always the weakest point. It can't have a weakest point. We'll fix it. We'll come up with a new design." Sulun gave the twisted metal a lack. "No point wasting all this good iron."
"How do I make a tube without a seam?" Omis grabbed and tugged his woolly hair, staring at the mess. "How? Out of solid iron?"
"Doshi's back with the wine," Zeren announced.
Sulun shouldered the firewood, Omis gathered up the ruined bombard—at least the major pieces—and they went inside.
"How do you make a tube without a seam?" Omis was asking for the fourth time, over his third cup of wine. In the dimmed afternoon light his bearded, spark-scarred face looked flushed and boyishly distressed, and he drew admiring looks from Yanados, across the table, that were much out of character with her apprentice boy's disguise. Sulun smothered a wry laugh behind his hand; Omis was not above twenty-five years of age, remarkably un-scarred for his trade, and certainly handsome enough under the frequent layer of soot.
Omis was also busily and happily married, another of Shibari's freedmen working mostly at Shibari's house. A shop uptown, a wife, couple of kids in the estate itself—Yanados didn't have a chance there.
Yanados, now . . .
Sulun turned the half-full cup in his hand and studied her over its rim.
In the four years since he'd left old Abanuz's tutelage and applied to Shibari as tutor, philosopher, and sometime (more frequently lately) naval engineer, he'd learned that Yanados's case wasn't unique; a young woman with no family, no dowry, and she had few choices in Sabis—or anywhere else for that matter: prostitution, slavery, thieving, begging . . .
Young men, however, could enter the various guilds as apprentices and work their way up to a respectable trade. And disguise, at least as regarded the public eye, was easy. Take off the clattering jewelry, flounced dresses, filmy veils, headdresses, face-paint; take away the willowy poses, fluttery gestures, and giggles. Put on the simple tunic, hooded cloak, plain sandals of a boy of the trades; lower one's voice, stride straight, bind the breasts if need be, swear a little—and behold, a young man.