The Iron Princess Read online

  The Iron Princess

  The Twilight Empress, Book One

  By Niall Teasdale

  Copyright 2018 Niall Teasdale

  Amazon Kindle Edition

  Contents

  A Note from Your Author

  Part One: Ayah

  Interlude: The Fox on the Road

  Interlude: Baraban’s Answer

  Part Two: The Festival of Growth

  Part Three: The Forest and the Trees

  Interlude: The Girl Who Talks to Spirits

  Part Four: Ghost Town

  Part Five: Thunder

  Epilogue

  A Note from Your Author

  A new book and a new world and a few things I thought might help while you’re reading. I put them here so that readers would not find them at the end and curse me for not making these details more obvious. Feel free to skip to the start of the story; that’s what contents pages are for.

  Measurements

  The principal units of measurement employed by most people for length or distance are the hand (about four inches), the foot (three hands or twelve inches), the pace (five feet), and the myl (a thousand paces or 0.95 miles). For your information, the longer measurements are based on Imperial Roman measurements. There’s also the span (two hands), but it isn’t used much.

  Weight starts out with stones (about a pound and named for the carved stone held in the Iron City which is its prototype). Larger weights are measured in hundredweight (120 stones; it makes as much sense as our definition) and drays (750 stones). Smaller weights are officially measured in grains (1/100 of a stone), but the unofficial pebble (1/8 of a stone) is used in many places and with varying degrees of accuracy.

  Calendar

  The year is 320.32 days long which necessitates a leap day every three years so the locals have come up with a rather odd calendar. They count time in ‘Great Years’ and those are made up of three ‘short years’ and an extra day, Great Sky Day. People generally count their age in Great Years, so if someone says they are six, they are actually about eighteen.

  Each short year is divided into eight months of forty days each. These are then numbered to give an indication of the short year. Hence, First Nahad is the first month of a Great Year, Second Nahad is the ninth, and Third Roshmin is the last month of the Great Year, though there is a Great Sky Day after it. The progression is: First Nahad, First Marita, First Jenshu, First Faeshu, First Poleda, First Tolesh, First Vaesha, First Roshmin, Second Nahad, Second Marita … Third Vaesha, Third Roshmin, Great Sky Day, and then back to the start

  Each week has seven days which are named Sky Day (not to be confused with Great Sky Day, which need not fall on a Sky Day), Wood Day, Fire Day, Earth Day, Metal Day, Water Day, and Moon Day.

  Each day is divided into eight quarters. Correctly, the day is divided into four quarters and so is the night. Days are about twenty-four of our hours long (the actual period of revolution of the planet is 22.32 hours, but the day length works out to twenty-four), so a quarter is three hours. As yet, no one really thinks finer time divisions are really needed.

  The moon orbits the planet every fourteen days and twenty hours. Like our moon, it is phase locked: the same face is always visible from the planet’s surface.

  Pronunciation

  There are some words in here that may be hard to pronounce, or not obvious anyway.

  · Ki pronounced key or kee.

  · Laoshi: the ‘ao’ sounds like the ‘ou’ in ‘ouch.’

  · Qi pronounced chi or chee.

  · Qiangjianfan pronounced chi-ang-jin-fan.

  · Taitai is pronounced like tay tay.

  While many of these words sound like Chinese or Japanese, the meaning of many is not quite the same. If you speak Japanese, Mandarin, or Cantonese, I apologise for the confusion.

  And I think that’s about all you need to know. Enjoy the show.

  Part One: Ayah

  The beginning of a tiny sprout. Sublimely prosperous and smooth. Favourable to be steadfast and upright. Do not act lightly. There is somewhere to go. Favourable to establish feudal lords.

  – The I Ching.

  Avrilatha Village, 1st Day, Second Marita, Great Year 206.

  The bright sunlight of late spring shone in through the window of the room set aside for Athelynn of Avrilatha to perform her specific kind of magic. The mudbrick walls carried a layer of yellow plaster which almost seemed to glow in the light. It was happy, cheerful, though that was not the demeanour of everyone there. Even though the villagers knew that her talents for healing were strong, and even though they all knew most of the ways she worked, they still tended to get wary when she brought out the needles. Ayah found it amusing.

  ‘Be still, Loffra,’ Athelynn said as her patient, a man two hands taller than she was and with bulging muscles to boot, tensed and shifted his body away from the long, slim weapon she was holding.

  Ayah was holding the tray with the rest of the needles on, though her mother was probably going to need no more than three to achieve what she wanted. Ayah had been assisting her mother in the healing room for more than two Great Years now and had a fairly solid grasp of her mother’s methods. Loffra had dislocated his shoulder in a wrestling match: Athelynn would numb the pain and relax the muscles first, and then would come the hard part.

  Athelynn pushed Loffra’s hair away from the nape of his neck and then eased her needle into his skin. He winced, and Ayah fought the urge to tell him not to be a baby, but then he began to relax visibly as the pain subsided in his shoulder. ‘Good,’ Athelynn said. ‘Now the next.’ Ayah held out the tray and her mother selected a second needle which went into the man’s shoulder at the base of his neck. Athelynn lifted his arm and a third needle was placed in his armpit. With his arm still raised, Athelynn gave Ayah a nod and Ayah put the tray of needles down on a smaller cabinet before circling around the treatment bench to stand on the other side of Loffra.

  ‘Now,’ Athelynn said, ‘Ayah will brace you from that side while I put your shoulder back in. Even with the needles, this will hurt. Think of it as a lesson from the spirits that you should take more care when you fight.’

  Loffra was not really that much older than Ayah. He had seen eighteen springs to her sixteen, but he was a boy and everyone knew boys were never as mature. He set his face in as casual a sneer as he could manage. ‘I can take it.’

  ‘Of course.’ Athelynn held up a length of wooden dowel and pushed it toward Loffra’s mouth. ‘Bite on this. It’ll make sure you don’t bite your tongue.’ Loffra may have been posturing, but he was sensible enough to take the dowel.

  Athelynn nodded. ‘Ayah?’

  Being careful of the needles, Ayah wrapped her arms around Loffra, bracing his shoulder and chest. The position put her way closer to Loffra than she wanted to be, but it was necessary. She set her feet firmly against the tiled floor – it was one of the few tiled floors in the village, and everyone had come together to make the healer’s room safer for everyone – and focused on driving her qi down into the ground, anchoring herself. Ayah was not the best wrestler in the village by a long chalk, but she was not the worst either and she knew the principles of rooting herself. ‘Ready, Ama.’

  ‘On three then,’ Athelynn said, taking Loffra’s arm in a firm grip. Ayah knew exactly what her mother meant by that. ‘One,’ Athelynn said, and Ayah tightened her muscles just as Athelynn pulled. There was a startled yelp from Loffra and then the sound of wood being crushed between teeth. ‘Perfect,’ Athelynn said, smiling brightly. Ayah let go of Loffra fairly quickly and stepped back.

  Loffra unclenched his jaw and took the dowel out of his mouth with his free hand. ‘I thought you said on three,’ he said rather plaintively.

  ‘And then
you would have tensed, or tried to, and made it that much harder for all of us. Now, Ayah will prepare a sling for your arm. You are to remain in the sling for at least the next week.’

  ‘But–’

  ‘No! One week to be sure the muscles mend. Your qi is unbalanced, Loffra. You’ll not be fighting well until your injury heals naturally.’

  Loffra sighed, but he nodded. ‘Yes, Laoshi.’

  ‘Good.’ Athelynn reached down to begin pulling out the needles and Ayah stepped forward with a square of cloth to form the sling from. ‘We’ll get you sorted out and on your way. Ayah and I have to visit Taiana this afternoon.’

  ‘Isn’t she almost due?’

  Ayah considered it surprising that a young man had actually noticed that a woman was close to giving birth, but Loffra could be quite sensitive when he was not being brash and a little annoying.

  ‘Yes,’ Athelynn replied. ‘Exactly how close is what I’ll be determining this afternoon.’

  ~~~

  Ayah watched her mother work and, once again, wondered whether she would ever be able to do the same. If forced at sword point to admit it, she was jealous. Her mother was a really great healer, but right now she was using barely a fraction of that talent to examine the flow of qi through Taiana’s body. Even more incredibly fantastic than that, Athelynn was sensing and interpreting the flow through Taiana and her baby! It was… really awesome.

  ‘Her qi has almost entirely separated, Taiana,’ Athelynn said, smiling warmly at her patient. ‘No more than a week. Probably three or four days.’

  Taiana was a small woman, shorter than Ayah and quite slim, and was having more than a little trouble with her pregnancy. She was having a girl, but that girl was going to be a big one. ‘I’ll be glad of it,’ Taiana said in her soft voice. ‘I feel like a minnow that’s swallowed a whale. My back…’

  ‘You’re using the tincture I gave you?’

  ‘Yes. Not too much, but yes. It eases it when I’m really bad.’

  ‘Good. Now, you have Noffren come to me as soon as there’s any sign.’

  Laughing, Taiana nodded. ‘I will. I won’t be able to stop him. I swear he’s worrying more than I am.’

  ‘Well, that’s expectant fathers for you.’

  ~~~

  ‘I wish I could do that,’ Ayah said as she walked beside her mother back to their home. ‘Just… look and see the flow.’

  Athelynn laughed. ‘I know you do, and I know you will in time.’

  ‘Yes, but–’

  ‘Patience, daughter. For one thing, I don’t just look and see. My mother could do that, yes, and I hope to attain her skill in time, but I have to focus to see the qi flowing in a person. You’re young, but you are determined. In time, you will be able to see what I see.’

  ‘I’m not very patient, Ama.’

  That provoked another laugh. ‘Of this, I am aware. I was not especially patient when I was your age. You’ve not seen your sixth Great Year, Ayah. Take time to be a child before you leap into being an adult.’

  ‘Adults always say things like that. I think it’s because they forget what it’s like to be a child.’

  ‘Children always say things like that. I think it’s because they don’t know what it’s like to be an adult.’

  Ayah burst into a fit of giggles. ‘I’m serious,’ she finally managed.

  ‘So am I. I know, Ayah, that you feel belittled and want more from life. People don’t listen to you. No one really takes you seriously. It’s terrible. When you get older, you’ll come to see that no one listens to adults either, or they do and then hear what they want to hear. People take you seriously only when it’s in their best interests. When you’re older, you have more responsibility, but no more power or influence. Revel in being someone society expects nothing of while you can.’ There was just a slight pause, but Athelynn’s expression shifted from seriousness to a wicked grin. ‘How are your lessons with Sanden going anyway?’

  With widening eyes and a slight splutter, Ayah said, ‘I don’t have lessons with Laoshi Sanden. I help him in the forge and we discuss… sports.’

  ‘Sports… Mm.’

  ~~~

  Working the bellows for Sanden’s forge was hard work. Ayah did it for any number of reasons. It was good exercise, working her upper-body muscles, which she hoped might result in a bigger bust – another thing her mother said she should be patient about, but then Athelynn had a bigger bust than her daughter.

  Then there was the fact that Ayah liked Sanden. He was a lot older than she was and a respected member of the village community even though he had come in as an outsider. Sanden was living through his sixteenth Great Year, which was older than Ayah’s mother, but Ayah still had a bit of a thing for the village’s smith. He was a handsome man, tall and strong with a broad chest. He was from somewhere in the west – though he spoke little of his past and no one knew exactly where he had come from – and the westerners were taller and slimmer than their eastern brethren. He had brown eyes where most of the villagers had green or blue, and Sanden’s eyes held a soft compassion which warmed Ayah’s heart whenever he looked at her. His black hair was greying and receding a little, and his brow had wrinkles, but that just gave him character. Add in the strong chin with the cleft and the straight nose, narrower than an easterner’s nose, and you got a handsome package. Especially when, as now, he had discarded his shirt due to the heat of the forge.

  And there was the last thing, the really unique thing about Sanden: he was the only practitioner of Metal Form in the village. And while many smiths practised Metal Form, not all of them mastered it. Sanden had. For whatever reason, he had also decided that he could teach some of the art to Ayah. She was sure that he had seen potential in her. She was less sure that it had not been her constant pestering, though perhaps that had demonstrated her enthusiasm.

  Right now, there was no teaching. Sanden was leaning on one of the posts, which supported the roof of his open forge room, and puffing on his pipe. Well, there was not the kind of teaching that Ayah really wanted, but like many of the arts, not everything about the Metal Form was fighting.

  ‘Watch the colour of the metal, Ayah,’ Sanden said. ‘We want a purple colouration to make the chisels Davin wants. I admit that it’s not as simple as it sounds, but you’re watching for the change from brown to purple.’

  Ayah glanced at the bar of iron in the forge and tried to see the brown that Sanden suggested was there. Mostly, it looked like a lot of charcoal. She wondered briefly whether she was going to have to cosy up to some charcoal burners to learn Wood Form. Learning Metal and Earth – and healing from her mother – would keep her quite busy enough for now.

  ‘It kind of all looks like charcoal and glowing metal, Laoshi,’ Ayah said. She staring to wish she could get rid of her rather heavy dress as easily as he had shucked his shirt, but that kind of thing was generally frowned upon once you were past your fourth Great Year.

  Sanden gave a soft chuckle. ‘It takes experience. Knowing what you’re looking for is… more of an art than a skill.’ Putting down his pipe, he reached for his apron, put it on, and grabbed a pair of tongs. ‘My experience says we’re about there.’ He pulled the iron rod free of the fire and examined it. ‘Yes. This will be the last tempering. Go and get the practice swords.’

  Grinning brightly, Ayah let go of the bellows and rushed to the back of the shop where a pair of blunted swords lay waiting. Each was about as long as Sanden’s arms and they were heavy. They were, in fact, right on the edge of being too heavy for Ayah to lift. Another reason to keep up on the bellows work was to build her muscles and make Metal Form easier. The swords had fairly rough blades with no edge, a poorly bound grip, the simplest of pommels, and crude, bar crosspieces, but Ayah loved them, because she used them to learn another Form.

  Sanden was beating the chisel he was making into shape when Ayah returned. That was not stopping him giving instruction, however. ‘Take your first position.’ Ayah placed one of the swords a
gainst a box and settled herself into the first ready position, body angled slightly to her imagined foe and her sword braced in a defensive, mid-height position. ‘Good. Third position.’ Ayah’s left foot moved back and she lowered her sword’s tip to point down: a low-guard, deceptive position. ‘Fifth.’ Ayah shifted again, bringing her sword up to lie along her forearm, the tip behind her and her left hand once again securing the pommel. This was another deceptive stance: it looked defensive, but it made distance difficult to judge for your opponent and was meant for attacking.

  While Sanden appeared to have all his attention on his work, he was still capable of spotting Ayah’s faults. ‘Your blade should be parallel to the ground. Widen and lower your stance. From fifth, you should be ready to spring into an attack with great force, but you may also initiate a rapid strike to the rear, should that be needed.’

  ‘How would I know it was needed, Laoshi?’ Ayah asked. ‘My eyes are at the front of my head.’ She knew what his answer would be, but she liked to hear him say it. Every time he did, she felt that what he was trying to tell her sank a little more deeply into her awareness of his Form.

  Sanden paused in his hammering, examining his work carefully before giving a nod and plunging the steel into a tub of water. There was the hiss and sizzle of steel quenching. ‘The master of Metal Form practises the seeing of things in four ways, my student.’ He knew that she knew what he was going to say too, but he gave her his little lecture anyway. ‘He sees with his eyes what is around him. He uses his experience of the world to see the broader picture. He uses his mind to perceive the implications of what he sees around him. Through these ways of seeing, he builds a picture of his world, a detached and dispassionate view of his reality. By fully utilising his senses, he may determine more about his world than simple sight will give him.’