A Discourse in Steel Read Online Free

the alleys, a black wall that stretched between the lines they’d drawn. Nix’s sigils floated in the air before it, their light illuminating nothing. The journal in his tunic warmed, meaning they were closer to Drugal.
    Nix felt as if he were looking into a hole that went on forever, and he felt a disconcerting lurch, as if he were sinking, falling into the hole, into the dark, lost forever. His thoughts took an abrupt turn. He flashed on himself as a boy, knifing an old man as they fought over bread. The shame of that murder reared up in him, overwhelmed him. He realized he was weeping, just like the teamster. Just like the teamster. The teamster.
    “Shite.”
    He shook his head, came back to himself, grabbed Egil by the shoulder and shook him.
    “Egil!”
    Egil stared into Blackalley, his expression pained, haunted.
    Nix grabbed him by the face and pulled him around.
    “Egil! Keep yourself! Egil!”
    The priest’s eyes cleared. He shook his head, focused on Nix.
    “Fak. That’s…disconcerting.”
    “Aye.” Nix stared into Egil’s blunt-featured face. “We still going?”
    “Nix, if he’s still alive in there…”
    Nix nodded, patted the journal through his cloak. “We can’t leave him to that. Fine. Good. Well enough.”
    Nix spoke a word of power to activate the shining eye in his palm. Sparkles of light formed in its depths. He tapped the etched eye on its surface.
    “Wake up. And go bright.”
    The eye opened and emitted a beam of white light. For the nonce, Nix aimed it at the ground.
    “Ready?” Nix asked Egil.
    Egil nodded. “Aye.”
    “Isn’t this one of the moments you’re always talking about?” Nix said to him. “Shouldn’t you pray or chant or something?”
    “My whole life’s a prayer. Let’s do it.”
    “Well enough,” Nix said, as they turned in unison to face Blackalley.
    The black wall shimmered. Nix aimed the light from his crystal and the beam illuminated nothing, was merely swallowed by the dark.
    “Shite,” Nix said. “It’ll weigh down on you. Don’t let it.”
    “Aye,” Egil said. “Link up.”
    They locked arms as they walked toward Blackalley.
    —
    The clamor of the Low Bazaar leaked through the tent’s dyed canvas: the beat of drums, the ring of a distant gong, the thrum of conversation, raucous laughter, an occasional shout, the music of buskers, and the occasional outbreak of applause.
    Merelda smiled. She’d spent the first twenty-two years of her life imprisoned by her own brother, her life made artificially tiny, her experience of the world trivial. She loved the Low Bazaar so much because it felt so wild, big, and unpredictable. In that regard she supposed it reminded her of Egil. He, too, made her smile, though she sensed the sadness in him.
    She and Rose had adapted to their new lives quickly. Egil and Nix had been helpful, even solicitous—allowing them to room in the Slick Tunnel for as long as they needed, providing them with coin when necessary—but Rusilla insisted they not come to rely on the two adventurers.
    “We make our own way,” Rusilla always said.
    And they did. They’d rented a stall on the outer fringe of the Low Bazaar, a smoke-leaf stall on one side, and a seller of wool on the other. They dressed themselves in ornate but cheap jewelry, robes, and headwear, and told fortunes for silver terns.
    Patrons came in for a reading and a shallow read of their minds told Rusilla and Merelda what they wanted to hear. The patron left pleased and Rose and Mere dropped another tern or three into the small coffer that held what they earned.
    “For a home, in time,” Rose always said when she deposited the coins.
    At first, in order to get paying patrons, they’d had to busk the customers of the smoke-leaf and wool stalls. But their reputation had grown quickly—quickly enough that they soon had a score or more customers per day, and many regulars who returned weekly. In fact, the “seeing sisters” had gotten well-known enough that