Meister of the Secret
The Tijervyn Chronicles: Volume Two
Chapter Three

story by
Richard Fife

art by
April Herron

Chapter Three: “An Offer”

Bryon glanced up from the book he had been reading as something caught his eye. Out in the hallway, a small, model dirigible floated by. A moment later, Vlad followed it, pausing only briefly to lightly blow on the model. Then both model and man were out of sight.

Bryon shook his head and looked back down at his book. Ada nuzzled into his hand, and he rubbed the articulated plates on the back of the clockwork cat’s neck. He barely heard her purr, and he found himself reading the same paragraph over and over. Somewhere in the back of his mind he was waiting for the inevitable explosion of when Vlad blew the hydrogen filled model near a flame, but it never came.

After the tenth time reading the same passage, he put the book down and gently moved Ada from his lap to his desk. The cat looked at him with glowing green eyes, seeming more curious than annoyed, and he wondered, not for the first time, exactly how much like a real cat she was. Still, that was not what was bothering him.

He made his way to the gang’s common room and was not surprised to see everyone there except Gust, who was out checking the drop points for potential jobs. Vlad was still walking around, blowing his airship along, and Kira and Gavrial were both sitting on couches, as far from each other as the room would allow. Margot sat in a corner, playing a game of chess with herself and sulking.

“Okay then,” Bryon said. “Snap out of it. He’s gone.”

Everyone looked at him with daggers, and Kira scoffed.

“No thanks to you.”

“I didn’t tell him to leave,” Bryon said.

“You didn’t stop him,” Margot said.

“Like you would have?” Gavrial said.

Margot put a hand to her chest. “You wound me, Gavrial. I love Brassman the same as any of us. Well, maybe not any of us.” She gave Kira a pointed look.

Gavrial split his glower between Margot and Kira, and Kira stood up.

“And just what does that mean?” she said.

“I think,” Vlad said. “I think that she’s trying to say that you have a thing for Markus.”

Kira kept her eyes on Margot. “I figured that much, Vlad.”

“Then why ask?” Vlad said.

“Vlad, you might want to can the simpleton act,” Gavrial said.

Vlad looked at Gavrial in what might have been true confusion or an act. Bryon could never tell. “Simpleton?”

“That’s quite enough,” Bryon said. “The simple fact is that he is gone. He left for his own reasons, and there was no point trying to stop him.”

“He didn’t even say goodbye,” Kira said.

“And you didn’t rush out into the street after him,” Bryon said.

Kira blushed and looked away, and Gavrial shifted his glower to Bryon. “What’s your point?”

“That he’s gone,” Bryon said. “I know it’s only been three days, but he was only here for three months, for Troena’s sake. I’m sorry to lose him, but he had his own demons to work out, and he wasn’t going to do that here. He knew it, and we all did too.”

“Truth told,” Margot said. “Brassman really wasn’t cut out for the thieving line of work.”

“Too much like a noble.” Gavrial flinched as the words came out of his mouth and he glanced at Kira.

She did not seem to notice. “Yeah, so, he was a good man.”

“And we are not,” Vlad said. “Point in fact, even Bryon doesn’t completely buy into that ‘fate makes us do this’ line.”

Bryon bristled at the comment but held his tongue. He was a thief only because that was the only option the world had left open for him, but he did not need his gang to understand that, at least not now.

“He wasn’t made to be one of us,” Bryon said.

“Actually,” Gavrial said. “He kind of was. I mean, what else is a man with lockpicks in his fingers and a grappling hook in his leg going to do?”

“Not to mention I hear most the revenants in Adervyn have turned to crime too,” Vlad said. “I heard a priest talking about it the other day. Something about the spike turning them evil.”

“Markus isn’t evil,” Kira said.

“Yet,” Vlad said.

“He isn’t evil!”

Vlad shrugged and went back to blowing his model dirigible around the room. Kira sat back down and glared after him, and Gavrial went back to brooding.

“Bryon has a point,” Margot said. “Brassman isn’t coming back. That means we’re a man down again, and without a lockpick besides.”

“Kira can pick locks,” Vlad said.

“Kira?” Margot laughed. “Men’s hearts don’t count, Vlad.”

“Markus was teaching her,” Vlad said. “Probably been thinking about leaving us for a while, and didn’t want to leave us in a lurch.”

Bryon rubbed his beard and looked at Kira, who was still glaring after Vlad. “This true?”

She looked anywhere except Bryon and muttered something under her breath.

Bryon crossed his arms. “Kira.”

“Yes,” she said. “For the last month, he’s been taking me out and teaching me about locks. I’m not as good as he was, but I can make my way.”

“Well, that takes a load off my shoulders,” Bryon said. “I was wondering what we were going to do without a competent lockpick.”

“Is that what you’ve been worrying about?” Kira said. “Picking locks?”

“Kira, that will be quite enough of that,” Bryon said. “Yes, I’ve been worrying about the future of the gang. I’m sure when your stomach stays full, you’ll thank me.”

Kira held his gaze for several long moments, and only broke off when the door to the stairs opened and Gust walked in. The Krellin man stopped and looked around the room, then turned to Gavrial and said something in his native tongue.

Gavrial shook his head and said something back. Bryon again cursed himself for never having learned Krellin, and what little he knew told him there was likely a few disparaging words directed at him in the strings of strange syllables.

Gust said something else and walked over to Gavrial with an envelope in hand. Gavrial looked at the envelope for a second then held it towards Bryon.

Bryon grabbed the envelope and opened it. The letter inside was short and to the point, but it made next to no sense. He handed it to Gavrial, who laughed.

“Is he serious?” Bryon said.

“I’ve never really known him not to be,” Gavrial said.

Kira furrowed her brow. “What is it?”

“We have an offer for a job,” Bryon said.

“From whom?” Vlad asked.

“Meister Jasyn Hares,” Gavrial said. “And he wants to meet us about it today, in the Meister’s Millhouse.”

“He can’t be serious,” Kira said.

Bryon reached into the envelope and pulled out three lacquered badges. “It would seem that he is.”

* * *

Rats scurried along the walls, the sound of their sharp claws scraping against the stone of the sewer echoed up and down the passage so that it was impossible to tell exactly where they were. A steady drip of water merged with the sound, or perhaps it was several drips. One or many, they too were hidden, and for as much as one could see, there was actually no water to be found. That did not seem to stop the dripping water, though.

Maaike pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders and continued on, one hand held high with a lamp that did little to light her way. She silently wished that she did not have to leave the castle by such horrible means, but the truth was that anything less hideous would increase the chances of her being caught leaving. That in and of itself would not be bad. Plenty of nobles snuck in and out of the castle for various reasons of intrigue and deception. But, depending on who caught her, it might lead to questions of why exactly she was sneaking out. And that was not something she could afford to be discovered.

The sewers, she was sad to admit, had been Jaeger’s idea, if not directly. Back when she had been on better terms with the man, they had actually enjoyed some amount of small talk, and if it was one thing the man could not be quiet about, it was the city and its problems, and the sewers accounted for several. They needed repaired. They needed cleaned. They needed patrolled. The last had caught her attention, and he had admitted that thieves tended to use the massive tunnel and sewer system beneath Tijervyn for their more clandestine operations. There was even at least one major gang, some group of miscreants call The Hole, that actually made their home in them.

So, once Maaike had come to realize she needed to move like a thief, she decided she should take a leaf from their book. She had discreetly found a map of the sewers and even done some exploring of her own, and before long, she had found a path straight from the castle to the Scent District. And there was not a single locked gate or barricade to be had. The implication worried her, but not enough that she would ever consider alerting authorities to the blindingly large hole in the castle’s security. It was too convenient.

At the end of one corridor, she found a false brick in the wall and slid it aside to reveal a lever. It gave with the well-greased ease of new machinery, and the wall on the other side of the hall opened up to a basement, blessedly free of both rats and dripping water.

The door had not originally been there. She had asked Mortimyr to make the door for her, but he had demurred, saying his skill with larger machinery was inadequate. More likely the man had truly been too lazy or thought the work beneath him, but it didn’t matter. There were still a few of those Voxfeldian meisters her and Jaeger had shipped in that had not managed to make their way out of the city. She had found one to build the door for her in secret, and then bought him his passage back home. She had considered keeping him in her employ, perhaps even instructing Mortimyr to pass on his skill to the man, but she decided against it. It was hard enough hiding one meister.

She stepped into the basement and closed the door by way of another hidden lever, and as the door closed, Mortimyr himself descended the stairs to meet her. He was a disgusting man. No matter how many times she saw him, she could not help but be revolted by him anew every time. But oily, lank hair, grossly wide midriff, and beady, leering eyes aside, the man was useful. No meister in the city knew how to make a revenant. None, that was, except for Mortimyr.

“This way, my lady,” the meister said.

She nodded and followed him to a separate room. Inside, three men lounged about, seeming to idle away the early evening hours. Men at a glance that was. Only a glance. One’s lower face was only the barest steel mockery of a mouth and jaw. Another had a steel plate stretching from the back of one ear to the other, and beneath a mop of red hair, the third’s face was half metal with a green orb where an eye should have been. The third man had a metal arm, as well, and the second had replaced both. There were other modifications, too, but those were the most apparent. That, and the silver stumps and wires that stuck out of their heads. Revenants. She had made revenants in Tijervyn. That fact alone could stretch her neck.

“Iwazan, Kikan, Mizan,” she said to each in turn. “I see you are well.”

The three nodded to her. Not commoners to a noble, but thugs to their boss. They had other names, once, but when Mortimyr had enhanced them, she had given them new ones. The modifications reminded her of an old proverb about monkeys from Voxfeld, and thus they were named.

“Where to tonight, boss?” Iwazan’s voice had a metallic rasp.

“The court is growing complacent,” she said. “Rumors from the docks and the slums only carry so much weight. Tonight, I want you in the Brass Purses. I want tomorrow’s broadsheets proclaiming a revenant menace.”

The three men smiled then left. Maaike waited for the door to close then looked at Mortimyr. From the way he shrunk back, her displeasure must have been clear in her eyes.

“Still only three?”

“Yes, my lady,” Mortimyr said.

“I have sent you plenty of candidates.”

“And I only have two spikes left, my lady,” Mortimyr said. “We cannot afford to waste them. The men you have sent me, I do not know if they would survive my treatments, and once a spike has been used, it cannot be reused.”

“I hear excuses,” Maaike said. “I want results. Plenty of soldiers took the spike with no problem, many lesser men than what I’ve sent you.”

Mortimyr stood up taller and straightened his jacket to no effect. “Lady Kanadis, there is a difference between a soldier already sitting on death’s bed and a whole if not entirely healthy man volunteering to let me hack off his limbs. Besides, to use a spike on what you have sent me would limit us.”

“Limit us?” She raised an eyebrow. “A halfman is a halfman, Mortimyr. Once you get the spike in their head, you can hack off and add to them however you want. The weakest beggar can become a monster.”

“But what would a monster become?” Mortimyr smiled. “My lady, I could make you two more halfmen, it is true, and then you will have five monsters at your beck and call.”

“It is more than three.”

“But less than four,” he said.

She narrowed her eyes. “I do not have the patience for your word games. How would four serve me better than five?”

Mortimyr started to pace and bob his head in a way that set his jowls to shaking. “Quintin is a blind fool, my lady. I learned from him, but I am willing to take steps he would not dare brave. There is a technique that I discovered, a means of creating an even more powerful cyborg, but Quintin refused to let me use it. Not that I ever had a fitting specimen. It would take an exemplary body and mind to withstand it, and I ever had the old fool’s eyes on me.”

“I have sent you at least a few large, strong men,” she said.

“That were dumb as bricks,” Mortimyr said. “Lady Kanadis, what I propose to you is not to make simply yet another goon to add to your gang. No, right now they are small time at best. Thieves and rapists. They need a leader, my lady. And for that, we need a man with both the body and the mind.”

Maaike tapped her lip in thought. “How sure are you that this will work?”

Mortimyr smiled, a dirty thing that made Maaike want to bathe. “Find me the right man, and it will work. I guarantee.”

She pulled her shawl tighter. “I’ll see what I can do. Good evening, Meister.”

She felt his eyes on her until the door to the sewers was closed again. She had no clue where she was going to find a man like he wanted, but the idea of a revenant even more powerful than anything Quintin ever made for Adervyn was too tempting. With such a monster at her control, she could easily topple the Meisters’ Guild and leave the crown so indebted to her that her barony might become a fully duchy. All she had to do was find the right man.

* * *

Bryon had never visited the Meisters’ Guild, but he had heard plenty of stories and even seen it from the outside from time to time, back before the hideout on Logain Street had burned down. Even then, it had only been because the guild was on the best path from the lower part of Uptown to the hideout. Now, with their new hideout, he had no reason to pass by.

Despite this, he could instantly see the differences he had heard about. The main gate, once kept fully open during the day, was now nearly closed, and a short queue of people wrapped nearly a block back. Two men in gray coats and with shockrods at their sides stood by the gates, eyeing those who passed by.

“I see Markus left a lasting impression,” Gavrial said.

“I doubt it was him,” Kira said. “Not like he used the front door.”

“Be quite about that now,” Bryon said. “He didn’t exactly give us a good accounting of what happened that night.”

“Might be this is about that night,” Gavrial said. “I can’t see much reason for Tesma’s ilk to have truck with us.”

“Could be, old chap,” Bryon said. “And that is why I brought you, and I trust you brought a stout, wooden club, yes?”

Gavrial nodded and patted under his coat. “I still feel naked without my guns.”

“And how would you get them passed those guards?” Kira said. “They’re checking people for weapons, you know.”

“Bah, I haven’t seen them touch a person,” Gavrial said.

“Because they don’t have to,” Kira said. “They have some new device that’s built into the door. It can tell if you’re carrying a gun.”

Gavrial shuddered. “And how’s it do that?”

“With Tesma’s lightning, I’m sure,” Bryon said. “Now shush.”

They stood in line quietly, and when they were at the head of the line, Bryon pulled out the lacquered badges and showed them to the guards. They looked at the badges impassively and just waved them through without another glance. That is, until Gavrial stepped through the gate.

A soft ringing seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once, and the guards turned to Gavrial with hands on their shockrods.

“You’ll have to leave your gun here,” one of the guards said. “You can reclaim it when you leave.”

Gavrial blinked. “What?”

“Your gun, sir,” the second guard said. “We aren’t going to keep it, but you can’t take it inside.”

Gavrial looked around, frowned, then reached deep into his coat and pulled out a simple revolver by the barrel. Never in the entire exchange did the guards look worried that Gavrial might pull the weapon out and shoot them, and the first guard calmly took it from him, handed him a slip of paper, then carried the weapon to a guard shack just inside the gate.

“Present that voucher when you return, and we’ll return your weapon,” the second guard said.

“Simple as that?” Gavrial said.

“We aren’t constables,” the guard said. “We won’t take what isn’t ours.”

“Interesting theory,” Bryon said. “Thank you.”

Gavrial looked like he wanted to say more, but he took Bryon’s cue and dropped it, although he made quite a show of folding the voucher and putting it in his shirt pocket.

“Where now?” Bryon said. “Jasyn’s letter said to just go to the contracts office and ask for a guide.”

“Contracts is over this way,” Gavrial said.

The walked across the courtyard, and Bryon took the time to look around. The large, central building really was more of a castle than a tower, despite what everyone called it. The name likely came from what most people saw of the thing, the narrower upper region that was visible from outside the thick stone wall with its copper spikes. Below the line of the wall, though, the building expanded out and took up much of the space of the compound. Several other buildings were butted up against the wall, although one building did stand completely alone, near the river.

Inside the contracts building, Gavrial showed the lacquered badges to a squat woman behind the counter, and she looked them over, frowned, but sent a novice meister along to show them the way to Jasyn’s offices in the Millhouse.

Bryon kept his eyes open as the novice guided them. The interior of the complex reminded him quite bit of the little he had seen of Adervyn so many years ago, all metal grating and metal walls and metal ceilings. Even the doors were metal, as if the meisters had some aversion to wood or stone.

The Millhouse itself was another thing completely. Massive waterwheels larger than some townhouses churned in the Sigrid River and drove strange machines that glowed with an eerie blue light. The river itself was several stories below, and the entire area, wheels and all, was enclosed in a building of steel beams and plates. On the far side, a series of enclosed rooms almost formed a building set into the wall instead of on the ground.

The novice led them to an office that was down several flights of stairs, almost to the water level, and knocked on the door. Inside, a gruff voice said something indecipherable, and then Jasyn Hares, a squat man in his middle years and sporting the bracer of a mid-ranked meister on his left arm, opened the door and looked at them all through squinting eyes.

“So you came,” he said.

“We shouldn’t have?” Gavrial said.

Jasyn shrugged and waved them in and the novice away with the same motion. “Can’t say, really.”

“What does that mean, old chap?” Bryon said. “That you aren’t allowed?”

“No,” Jasyn said. “Praedin take anyone who thinks they can tell me what I can and can’t say. I mean that I honestly don’t know. But, I guess I should warn you, this isn’t bad. At least, not bad in the kind of way that means trouble.”

“Jasyn, you aren’t being very reassuring,” Kira said.

Bryon folded his arms and rubbed his beard. “Why don’t you just tell us what this is about?”

“Can’t.” Jasyn walked over to a work bench and gathered up some papers. “And no, I don’t mean I’m not supposed to. I mean I don’t know. Even if I did, it isn’t my place; it’s hers.”

“Hers?” Gavrial said.

A knock came from the door, and Jasyn walked over with a folio tucked under one arm and opened up. Behind the door was a tall, lean woman with a bracer so elaborately marked that it made Jasyn’s look plain. Gavrial and Kira seemed to recognize her from their sharp intakes of breath, and Bryon could deduce from what he’d heard.

“Master Meister Barak,” Jasyn said. “What a surprise to see you here.”

“Spare me your glib tongue.” She looked past Jasyn and over Gavrial and Kira. Her gaze stopped on Bryon. “I presume you are Bryon Salteen?”

Bryon narrowed his eyes but nodded. He knew the woman by reputation only, but what he had heard was enough. Qristina Barak, the highest officially ranked Meister in the country, and second only to her father, Tesma. On more than one occasion, Bryon had heard Jasyn refer to her as the Dragon of Tesma’s Tower.

She nodded and looked back to Jasyn with disapproval firmly on her face. “That will be all, Meister Hares.”

Jasyn tilted his head to the side at the dismissal and crossed his arms. “Leaving so soon?”

Rage flashed across Qristina’s face, but she schooled it back to the thinnest mask of civility. “Master of the Millhouse, might I borrow your office for a time so that I might talk to our guests in private?”

Jasyn rubbed his goatee for a moment then shrugged. “I suppose I can spare it.” He started to walk out, but stopped close enough that he could have talked to her in a whisper, but instead spoke as if he was on the other side of the room. “Remember our deal, Qristina. They get to walk out of here no matter their answer. No harm, no tails, nothing.”

Qristina sneered but nodded. “As we promised, Master Meister, long as you remember your side of the bargain as well.”

“I serve the Guild, Master Meister.” Jasyn nodded his head and left without a backward glance.

Gavrial took a step towards her when the door closed. “What’s this—?”

“Where is he?” she said. “Markus. Your revenant.”

“Revenant?” Bryon said. “My dear meister, I fear you are mistaken.”

“Dispense with your games, Salteen,” she said. “I already have my fill of it when I deal with nobles and industrialists. Let us speak more plainly. I know Sergeant Markus McGrigor is a revenant, and quite a strong one at that. Made by Quintin Lazris himself, although how a Sentatian soldier ended up being so is rather beyond me. I also know you are thieves. Let me make one thing quite clear, I don’t care about either of these. Or more to fact, it is because of these that I wish for you to enter my employ.”

Kira rushed forward and balled her fists. “So you can take Markus apart like some machine? Little chance of that now. He’s not with us anymore!”

“He left?” Qristina frowned down at Kira’s fists. “I am sorry to hear that, but no, if I wanted to learn how to create a revenant, I could simply travel to Adervyn and be taught. The Secret of Silver is of no interest to me, nor is any of Lazris’s craft.”

Gavrial put a hand on Kira’s shoulder but did not seem to make much effort to hold her back. “And where exactly would you employ us? In keeping a gaol cell warm?”

“Have you wronged me?” Qristina said. “Or the guild? Oh, I know you were involved in that mess in Docktown, but that was work, was it not? You owed the Guild no allegiance, so I don’t fault you for that. Besides, we have already recovered what was lost.”

Gavrial laughed. “You could still be sore over Markus busting up that bastard you had running around with the shockshield, hunting him.”

Qristina’s eyes narrowed then looked away. “That was a misunderstanding that Markus and the Guild have settled.”

“A misunderstanding?” Gavrial snarled. “That bastard killed one of our men in the Dunny Manor!”

“Your man was not killed,” Qristina said. “He was taken to a Garden District medical ward, and there put into police custody and later sent to Hordin House.”

Gavrial took a step back. “Jak’s alive?”

“Hordin House?” Bryon said. “The insane asylum?”

“I don’t know any other details beyond that,” Qristina said.

Silence settled over the room, and after some time, Bryon cleared his throat. “Very well, Qristina. What are the details of your employment?”

Her lips suggested the ghost of a smile. “I am sure you are quite familiar with the rumors of revenants in the city. These rumors are becoming rather nasty, and implicating the guild besides.”

“That sounds like an accusation,” Gavrial said.

“Oh, I have become rather good at putting rumors together,” Qristina said. “And I can see which ones stemmed from McGrigor. No, he hasn’t been the cause of my concern. The other three revenants have been.”

Bryon’s eyes widened, despite his attempts at keeping a controlled face. “Three?”

“Yes, three,” Qristina said. “No more, no less. For now, at least. And they are obviously working for someone who intends to undermine the Guild. Your task would be to figure out who commands them, and to put a stop to these revenants, preferably in a way that would turn the public opinion back to the Guild.”

“You seem pretty good at getting information,” Gavrial said. “And you have your shockshield bastard. Why us?”

“Because I have exhausted my avenues,” Qristina said. “There is only so much my agents, as good as they are, can do. Some things, I have decided, take a thief. I had hoped to gain Markus as a counterweight, but even without him, you are still the only thieving band in the city that knows what revenants can do and don’t view them as monsters from a fairytale.”

“And our payment?” Bryon said.

“A thousand quid a week, in addition to the Guild arming you with such equipment as you might need. I am correct in that you’re already acquainted with some of what we can offer.” She gave Gavrial a pointed look, and he squirmed under it.

Bryon nodded. “We’ll think on it.”

Qristina raised an eyebrow. “Think on it?”

“Yes,” Bryon said. “We will think on it. I trust this will be quite clandestine, yes? The Guild can’t be seen to be officially hiring a notorious gang of thieves.”

“Of course.”

Bryon nodded again. “Then I think we have heard what we need to hear. We’ll be leaving now.”

She furrowed her brow. “You are refusing my offer?”

“We are thinking it over,” Bryon said. “In our line of work, you don’t just accept a job, especially one like this, without thinking it over.”

“By which you mean you are going to poke around to see if I’m trying to set you up.” She shook her head. “If I wished you dead or captured, I assure you, you would be.”

“I’d like to see that,” Gavrial said.

“Hush,” Bryon said. “Do you have anything else to add, Master Meister?”

Qristina stood her full height and crossed her arms. “No, that covers it, Master Salteen.”

Bryon walked passed her and opened the door and gestured for Gavrial and Kira to go on ahead. When they were through the door, he closed it again and walked up close to Qristina.

“I have no reason to trust you,” he said. “And every reason to not. Still, this is business, and if it is sound, you can expect to hear back from us with our answer in two days. Will that suffice?”

She held his gaze and nodded. “I look forward to your favorable reply in two days time, because I can assure you, this is business. Nothing more.”

Bryon nodded and stepped back through the door, collecting Gavrial and Kira and starting the long walk out. He looked back when they were halfway across the catwalk above the waterwheels, but neither Qristina nor Jasyn were following them. Perhaps the offer was real, after all. Even if it was, a small voice in the back of Bryon’s head said there was some other motive. For the life of him, though he could not think of what.