In the Shadow of Lightning

23

Thessa was half carried, half dragged down the center street of the compound. She tried to think, tried to plan, but nothing but panic circled through her thoughts. Someone must have seen her enter the administration office. The schematics would be found on her person and then she would follow the fate of the other poor bastards who crossed Craftsman Magna. At best, flogged and sent to the lumber camps. Or worse …

She didn’t want to think of the worst, and was more than a little surprised when they escorted her right past the administration building. She craned her head to stare back at it, expecting to be taken directly to Craftsman Magna, when a new thought occurred to her: perhaps this was part of her escape! The enforcers were paid off, Axio already fetched away. She used the thought to calm herself. When her struggles finally ceased, the enforcers let her walk on her own.

There was a small building in the corner of the glassworks, down a narrow alley and isolated from the rest of the compound behind a pair of warehouses, labeled only with small letters calling it Furnace Number Nine. Thessa had seen it once in passing and had given it no thought.

A single enforcer stood outside a reinforced door. He opened it for Thessa and her escorts and then closed it behind them. Thessa heard a heavy lock fall into place. It was a workshop, with just a single workbench in front of a single furnace and space to work not much larger than her bedroom back at the Grent Glassworks. There were extra aprons hanging on the wall and a heavy crate slid against one corner. The walls were covered in cork panels, the room lit by gas lanterns. There were no windows.

All her hopes fled the moment she stepped inside. Sitting on the crate against the far wall was Craftsman Magna. He lounged happily, feet up on a smaller box, fingers knitted over his stomach. Axio stood in front of him.

The young man looked like he’d been worked over by a cudgel. His face was battered, his bottom lip bleeding heavily, and his tunic torn in several places. His eyes were downcast, not even lifting to glance at Thessa when she entered. A light green godglass collar had been placed around his neck, the sight of which made Thessa’s blood run cold.

Shackleglass.

Thessa’s breath caught in her throat, her thoughts screaming in terror. She didn’t even think to keep the fear off her face, and when he saw it, Craftsman Magna grinned back at her.

“You almost had me last night,” he said pleasantly, shaking his finger like a grandfather might at a rascally child. “A fellow Rennite? A young worshiper, stuck here for as long as the war lasted? It gave me ideas! Maybe I could have an assistant among the prisoners! An informant, even. Someone I could trust. But I don’t trust easily, young lady, and so I snatched your friend to ask him a few questions. Imagine my surprise when he spilled it all at the simple application of shackleglass.”

That collar Axio was wearing was no simple application. At a glance it looked like good-quality shackleglass, augmenting Axio’s compliance, turning him into a slave in both mind and body.

“You didn’t have to hurt him,” Thessa said.

“Oh, that was just a bit of fun for the guards!” Craftsman Magna hopped up from the crate and slapped Axio on the shoulder. “We had a long talk. Very long, very productive, as you can see.”

Thessa tried to summon a response; an excuse, a cry for mercy, anything. Nothing but a croak came out, and the overseer laughed cruelly.

“So!” he said. “You are Thessa Foleer, Master Kastora’s own protégé. Thanks to Axio here, I now know everything about you: your wonderful skill, your plans of escape, your sorcery aphasia. You really are a delightful catch, and to think you were right under my nose this whole time!”

Thessa forced herself to focus, holding on to the only crumbs of hope she had left: Axio didn’t actually know her plans for escape, only that she’d promised him they would. He didn’t know about the schematics, or about Demir.

Axio’s gaze lifted slightly, his chin trembling. “I … I’m sorry, Thessa,” he squeaked.

“Shut up!” the overseer said, turning and backhanding Axio. Axio stumbled back against the wall, his expression barely changing. He didn’t so much as make a noise of protest at the abuse. A closer look revealed that light green glassrot scales had begun to form on his neck and arms. Thessa took a half step forward, reaching for him, only to have her arms grabbed by her escort. The two guards held her tight.

The overseer returned his attention to her, a brief frown crossing his face. “Where was I? Oh yes, a delightful catch. This place – the prison compound – holds many different types of siliceer. Most are apprentices. A few journeymen. We seldom get people of real talent through here and when we do, we take full advantage of it. I have a craftsman convicted of murder making shackleglass in Furnace Seven, for instance.

“You,” he continued, “might be the most raw talent I’ve had come through here in my tenure. Master Kastora’s protégé!” He gave a happy little squeal and did a jump that seemed very out of character. “This furnace is where we make fearglass.”

Thessa did not think that her terror could get any deeper, and yet somehow it managed to do just that. Fearglass was just what it sounded like: a type of godglass that augmented fear. It had little practical application beyond torture, and to her knowledge it had been banned in the Empire since the discovery of the “gentler” shackleglass. Master Kastora used to say it had no place in a civilized society. It was notoriously dangerous to make; many siliceers had gone mad just trying to perfect the recipe.

Dangerous to make unless you had sorcery aphasia.

“I’m not making fearglass,” she whispered.

“Eh?”

Thessa repeated herself louder, putting every ounce of confidence she possessed behind the words. “I am not making fearglass!”

“Oh, yes you are,” the overseer chuckled. “You’re going to do whatever the piss I want you to do, because you are my pet. Don’t you get it? You’re alone, Thessa. No friends, no family. No one will come looking for you. You’re entirely at my mercy and unless you obey my commands I will make what’s left of your life very miserable.” There was a glint in the overseer’s eye as he spoke, as if he enjoyed the prospect of her resisting his rule.

“I’m not alone,” she replied. Her body shook like a leaf, yet she was proud that her tone was steady. “The war will end eventually and Master Kastora will come looking for me. He’s one of the greatest voices in the silic science. You don’t think–”

“Hah! Kastora is dead, you stupid girl,” Craftsman Magna cut her off. “He was killed the first day of fighting. Bayonet through the gut.”

Thessa’s mouth hung open, and she stared at the overseer in horror as a cold despair crept through her belly. That wasn’t possible, was it? The sweet old master, dead to Ossan bayonets. Thessa tried to speak but choked on her own bile. She swallowed rapidly to keep herself from throwing up.

Craftsman Magna practically danced around the little workshop. “You’re going to make me so rich! Glassdamn, this is incredible. I’m not even going to tell Supi about you! Ah!” He paused, turned toward Thessa. “First thing I want to know is what is on those schematics I took from you, you filthy little liar. You didn’t steal those. Kastora entrusted them to you, and I want to know exactly what they are.”

The schematics she’d already stolen back, that were tucked up her tunic at this very moment. Thessa managed to get herself under control long enough to say, “I don’t know.”

“Don’t lie to me!” The overseer suddenly lunged at her, taking her chin in one hand and squeezing it until tears sprang to her eyes. When she tried to pull away, her escort held her tight. “I may not be able to use shackleglass on you, but I’ll find other ways of making you cooperate.” He pulled away, his fury turning back to joy in the blink of an eye. “In fact, let me reiterate to you: you are alone.”

The overseer strode over to the furnace, where he pulled a bit iron from its spot in the reheating chamber. He dipped the end into the furnace, gave it a twirl, and then pulled it back out. The end of the bit iron was now covered in a fist-sized lump of molten black godglass, glowing cherry red at the center. “You might know this from your studies,” he said, “but fearglass has some unique properties. For one: it contains sorcery in its molten form, without any actual work – the only godglass that does. Axio, be a good boy and don’t scream.”

Before Thessa could react, he turned to Axio and smeared the honey-like molten fearglass across his arm. It made a sizzling sound, filling the room with the smell of burnt flesh. Axio responded immediately, clutching at the molten glass, burning his fingers as he let out a low keening moan. His eyes bugged out, his body trembling like he’d developed the worst kind of rheumatism. Thessa struggled against her escort, trying to pull away, to get to Axio and help him somehow, but they held her strong.

“You piece of…” she tried to shout, but a hand was slapped over her mouth. She was held in place, able to do nothing but stare as Axio’s state grew worse.

He was tearing at his skin now, strips of it coming off under his fingernails, leaving his arm a bloody mess. He seemed to have gotten most of the molten fearglass off but he continued to get worse. The keening sound grew more desperate, and he looked wildly from Thessa to the overseer, as if begging for permission to scream. “Please,” he sobbed, “it hurts so much. Please help me! Thessa, help!”

“No speaking,” the overseer said. Axio’s teeth clicked together as he continued to dig at himself. He ripped out whole chunks of flesh now, eyes wild, teeth bared in a painful grin. The overseer went on in a pleasant voice, watching Axio with a clinical expression. “Another interesting property of fearglass is that its effects are permanent. We’re not sure why – perhaps because, in the process of augmenting one’s fear, it also breaks the mind. Really quite remarkable. See, he’s gotten it all off now but he’s quite insane.”

Axio foamed at the mouth, his whole body convulsing in waves. Thessa watched in horror, trying to speak through the hand covering her mouth, wishing she could do anything to soothe the poor boy. Suddenly, as if a candle had been extinguished, his eyes rolled into his head and he collapsed. He did not move.

As if by some signal, Thessa was free. She threw herself to the ground beside Axio. She touched his skin, her fingers coming away all bloody, and then pressed them against his neck. Nothing. He was dead.

“You’re a monster,” she whispered.

“I’m your monster now,” Craftsman Magna said, coming to crouch across from her over Axio’s body. He grinned at her wickedly, so damned pleased with himself. “Now, tell me about the schematics.”

“Piss off.”

She could see the rage building once more behind the overseer’s eyes. He still held the bit iron with a large chunk of molten fearglass at the end, and he dipped it toward her dangerously, holding it just inches from her face. She could hear – very quietly – the resonance coming off it and, though the sorcery didn’t affect her, she could feel the heat. He said, “I will break you. You’re going to make me rich, or you’re going to die painfully. Choose which.”

Thessa felt dizzy, ready to collapse from terror and exhaustion. She looked down at Axio, then up at the overseer, desperately wanting to honor Kastora’s and Axio’s memories by spitting in the man’s face. She couldn’t bring herself to do it. The fear for her own life was too strong. She flinched away from the molten fearglass still hovering beside her face.

Something odd happened then. Behind the overseer, behind his two goons, the door to the furnace room slowly opened. A hand slipped inside, pressed briefly against the wall, showing her the double triangles of a glassdancer sigil. The rest of him followed, and in a few moments Demir Grappo stood with his back to the closed door. He looked like an entirely different person than yesterday: gone was the jovial guild-family idiot. His expression was hard, the many scars on his face standing out against a squared chin. Thessa wondered if she’d snapped. Was she seeing things?

Demir was absolutely silent. He raised a hand slowly to his lips and surveyed the room, his eyes remaining on Axio for several moments. Faintly, Thessa thought she heard a cracking sound.

One of the enforcers suddenly frowned, reaching for the breast pocket of his jacket and removing a pair of spectacles. There was no glass left in the rims. His mouth opened in confusion as a dark, bloody stain began to spread across the front of his jacket. His whole body seemed to deflate and he collapsed to the floor with a thud. The other enforcer turned to her fallen companion just as something tiny seemed to tear itself out of the dead man’s throat, shooting between them and punching through the center of her head. She jerked once as if she’d been shot, then fell.

This all happened in mere moments, and Thessa was still processing what she’d seen when the overseer turned to look at his enforcers. He leapt back, staring between Demir and the two dead enforcers. The color drained from his face, the haughtiness destroyed. Thessa would have found it incredibly satisfying if she didn’t want to throw up at the sight of three dead bodies.

No one had told her that Demir Grappo was a glassdancer.

The overseer snatched at her, but she leapt away in reflex, throwing herself to the other side of the small room so that Demir was on her left and the overseer was on her right. The overseer swore and readjusted his grip on the bit iron, thrusting the molten fearglass toward Demir as if it were a spear. The room was completely silent. No one moved.

“Well?” Thessa blurted, gesturing at the overseer. She was immediately horrified by her own expectation that Demir should execute him just as he had the other two.

“Killing someone like him is complicated,” Demir replied, not taking his eyes from the overseer. He was terrifyingly cold.

“Yeah,” the overseer spat. His breathing was heavy, his eyes wild with fear. “Yeah, he can’t kill me. I’m a guild-family member.” He let go of the bit iron long enough to thrust his silic sigil at both of them. “There will be consequences.”

“So now the negotiations start,” Demir said.

“There won’t be any negotiations,” the overseer replied. He pointed at Thessa. “That is my prize. I don’t know what you’re playing at, but you’re too late. She belongs to me.” His eyes darted toward Thessa with a cold, hungry look. He really did think of her as a piece of machinery.

“That,” Demir said, working his jaw, the fury tangibly emanating from him, “is a person.” He took a step forward, then another. “That is a human being with friends and knowledge and hope and you are treating her like a toy. She’s walking free of this place one way or another. You have ten seconds to give me an offer that’s easier than me killing every enforcer in this compound to make it happen.”

“You wouldn’t!” Craftsman Magna hissed.

“Baby Montego is just outside. You don’t think the two of us could level this place in an hour?”

Thessa had never actually met a glassdancer. She’d heard the stories – the way everyone talked about them as cold-eyed killers – but she’d never really believed them. In this particular moment, her own rage had subsided and she was afraid. There was little doubt that the man in front of her would do exactly as he’d just said.

“You’re bluffing,” the overseer said.

“He’s not bluffing,” Thessa said, suddenly overwhelmed by the desire not to see another corpse. “Give him an offer!”

Demir said, “Four seconds.” The overseer trembled, his eyes darting around the furnace room in a facsimile of what had happened to Axio succumbing to the madness moments ago. “Two. One.”

Without warning, the overseer threw the bit iron underhanded at Demir. It was not a hard throw, but the distance between them was slim and the action seemed to take Demir completely off guard. He let out an undignified grunt as the bit iron hit him. He stumbled backward, tripped, and fell. The overseer charged behind the throw, but watching Demir go down seemed to jostle loose that fury within Thessa once again. She put her shoulder down and hit the overseer hard from the side. He tripped over Axio’s body, stumbled against the open furnace door. His hands sizzled as he tried to grab ahold of the furnace and he screamed.

Thessa’s eyes were on Axio now. The poor, brave kid who’d fought a soldier to help her get away from Grent; who just wanted a trip to Ossa for some winter beer. She snatched up the bit iron, turned the hardening fearglass toward the overseer, and shoved. He went through the door of the furnace with another scream, and she leapt forward to slam the door shut. She threw the latch, listening to the thumping of his fists on the inside, accompanied by ever more desperate screams. Thessa tossed the bit iron aside.

“Demir! We have to go quickly, we…” She froze, staring as Demir pushed himself to his knees.

His face was pale, his limbs shaking like those of a rheumatic old man. It took Thessa only a moment to see that a jagged piece of fearglass had caught him across the collarbone, burning through his clothes and now jutting from his skin. “Demir?”

Demir’s shaking grew more violent, nearly throwing him to the ground. He somehow managed to get to his feet, shoving one hand into his pocket. Thessa understood his purpose immediately and helped him search for a piece of calming skyglass, which she threaded through one of his piercings. He staggered toward the door. “Montego … big man … outside,” he gasped.

Thessa threw herself out the door. The biggest man she’d ever seen stood halfway down the narrow alley, looking away from her, hands clasped behind his back. Of the guard that had been standing here minutes ago, there was no sign. “Are you Montego?” she called. “Demir needs your help!”

The big man turned and was hurrying toward her before she’d finished speaking. She led him back to the furnace room, where he immediately rushed to Demir’s side, picking him up with one massive arm. He surveyed the scene for a moment. “This is not good,” he rumbled.

“No … shit,” Demir wheezed.

“What has happened to him?” Montego asked.

She took a deep breath, wincing to herself, meeting Demir’s eyes. There was pain there; the kind of horrified deep suffering she’d seen on the faces of people who’d survived terrible wars. Though he had stopped trembling with the application of skyglass, there was froth at his mouth and his skin was deathly pale.

“Molten fearglass,” she told Montego, gesturing at the black, glassy spot burned through his jacket and the jagged piece of hot glass sticking out of his skin just above the collarbone. She had never made fearglass, for obvious reasons, but she’d read several books on it during her course of studies. The fact that Demir was still able to speak at all was incredible. “Did you hear the screams?” she asked. She could still hear the subdued sound of movement from within the furnace.

“Faintly,” Montego replied. “I doubt anyone else did.”

“Good. Give me those pincers,” Thessa ordered. She shoved all her fear and anger and disgust into one corner of her mind and slammed the door on it, allowing her analytical brain to take control of her body. There wasn’t a moment to lose. “There should be some water in that bucket there under the workbench. Dampen a handkerchief.”

Montego obliged, and she had him hold Demir up while she positioned herself in front of him. “I’m sorry,” she told Demir, “but this is going to hurt.” Not wasting another moment, she used the pincers to pluck the fearglass from his skin, trying to ignore the sharp inhale from Demir. Skin came away with it, white and cooked. She tossed the piece of fearglass aside.

“Handkerchief,” she ordered, taking the wet handkerchief from Montego and using it to stanch the blood.

“Is that it?” Montego asked. “Can we give him cureglass and milkglass and let him walk it off? Demir, do you understand me?”

Demir’s eyes left Thessa’s face long enough to move toward Montego. There was more coherence there now, but only just. “Go. Rot. Yourself.”

“Does that mean he’s better?” Montego asked, wringing his hands in a way that seemed very un-murder-giant-like.

“Unfortunately no,” Thessa said, pressing on the compress gently. “Fearglass is different from most godglass – it’s why it’s so dangerous. It leaves an imprint on the mind, even after it’s gone. It’s not nearly as bad as if he were exposed to a completed piece, but it’s still bad.”

Understanding blossomed into horror on Montego’s face. “This is permanent?”

“Unless we undo it.” Thessa chewed on the inside of her cheek. Her mind rushed through all the texts that Kastora had made her read years ago, trying to remember all the bits and pieces. “I need a glassworks.” She looked around and almost laughed. “But not this one.”

Demir made an awful sucking noise, and she looked down to find him clearly attempting to speak. She gently moved his head a little to the right, and he said, “Prosotsi. Wagonside.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Montego replied.

Thessa looked between them. “I don’t understand. Prosotsi is a guild-family, right?”

“Yes,” Montego explained. “Allies of the Grappo. Wagonside is a small but well-stocked glassworks. It belongs to someone we can trust. We’re about an hour away, if we go quickly.”

“How will we get out of here?” Thessa asked, glancing sidelong at Demir. He was trembling again, so badly that she could barely keep him upright, foam leaking out of the corner of his mouth. To her surprise he seemed to be fighting it, his hands curled tightly into fists, momentary flashes of comprehension entering his eyes. She could not understand why he was still upright. Axio had gotten much less on him and was dead by this time.

Montego remained silent for another moment, then nodded to himself. “Leave that to me, but you must trust me.”

“What does that mean?” Thessa asked, recoiling.

Montego threw himself into action without answering. He jerked open the door to the furnace. Smoke billowed out into the room, along with the powerful scent of burnt hair and flesh. Thessa thought she saw a charred hand and turned her face away while Montego plucked out a burning brand. He began to set the flame against everything in the room: the cork baffling, the crate, the clothes of the enforcers. The smoke became overwhelming in moments.

Thessa was just about to ask what she could do to help when he snatched up a canvas tarpaulin from beneath the crate in the corner. He met her eyes, his face solemn. “Absolute silence,” he said.

“What…” she began, but he threw the tarpaulin over her head. Before she could consider another thing, she felt herself snatched up as if she were light as a babe and tossed across Montego’s shoulder. She felt Demir’s body draped over her own and stifled a groan at the weight of it.

There was a thump, the rush of cool air, and Montego bellowed, “There’s been a terrible accident! Fire, fire!” They pounded along at a blistering speed, not bothering to stop as they passed a startled enforcer captain shouting questions after Montego. Montego simply yelled in return, “One of your damned guards went mad! Filur has been murdered and Demir is badly injured. Get that fire out!”

Thessa felt herself lifted once more and practically hurled through the air, landing hard, still wrapped in the tarpaulin. She recognized the bouncing squeak of carriage springs but dared not move.

“Out of my way if you want to keep your lives, you bloody wretches!” Montego bellowed. The carriage suddenly jerked into motion, and Thessa soon found herself bouncing along violently. She got up the courage to extract herself from the tarpaulin. She was lying on the floor of a carriage next to Demir, Montego on the bench above them, and the walls of the prison compound rapidly disappearing out the window.

She let out a little gasp. She was free of that place, but her relief was short-lived. Demir’s eyes rolled up into the back of his head. She adjusted herself into a sitting position on the floor of the carriage and pulled Demir’s head into her lap. She did not know if he had any comprehension left. Did he understand where he was, or who held him? She pressed her palms against his cheeks, whispering softly, hoping that it helped to comfort his mind.

She was no longer thinking about the cold killer she’d seen in his eyes, but about what he’d said to the overseer: that she was a person, and she would walk free of that place no matter what. He’d fulfilled that promise.

If they did not hurry, she would lose the only friend she had left in the world.