A Discourse in Steel by Paul S. Kemp

anything?”
    “Thank you, no,” Mere said. “Tesha’s taking care of everything.”
    Nix smiled at Tesha. “I think Tesha could take care of all of us, had she a mind.”
    Mere smiled. She looked back at her sister, asked almost coyly, “Where’s Egil?”
    Tesha shot Nix a meaningful look and he took the substance of it.
    “At the bar,” he answered. “He has…things on his mind.”
    “I see. Well, tell him to come up and check on Rose. If he wants, of course.”
    Nix shared a look with Tesha, said he would, and went back downstairs, sidestepping out of the way for Lis and a short laborer as they came upstairs, she with a professional smile, he with a face and expression flush with excitement. Lis rolled her eyes as she passed Nix.
    He returned to Egil’s side at the bar. Gadd had refilled his tankard.
    “You know Mere fancies you, yeah? Though not even the gods themselves know why.”
    “Bah,” Egil said. “She’s just a girl, Nix. She’s like a…”
    He trailed off, his expression falling, and put his face in his tankard.
    “She’s not a girl. She’s a young woman, and she most surely doesn’t think of herself as your daughter. She fancies you and that’s through no fault of yours, but you’ll hurt her if you don’t take care. Yeah?”
    “I’d never hurt her, Nix.”
    Egil’s eyes welled at some memory. Nix pretended not to notice.
    “Not on purpose, I know.” He put a hand on Egil’s mountainous shoulder. “Just have a care, yeah? It’ll probably pass, but be mindful so you don’t encourage it.”
    Egil nodded. Nix said nothing for a time, giving Egil time to gather himself and divert his thoughts from his lost wife and daughter.
    Nix asked, “Did you have a chance yet to talk to Enora? How’d she take the news about Drugal?”
    “As well as she could.”
    “I suspect she’ll get disciplined by the High Magister.”
    “Aye.”
    “She ask about Blackalley?”
    Egil nodded.
    “What’d you tell her?”
    “I didn’t tell her anything. Just that Drugal was already dead.”
    Nix flashed on Drugal’s black eyes, on the way he’d been stuck to the ground, as if being absorbed or slowly devoured. He cleared his throat and his mind.
    “Anything there? Between you and Enora?”
    “Not anymore,” Egil said, and left it at that.
    They drank another tankard apiece before Nix said, “I don’t remember us being such a somber pair of slubbers. How’d that happen?”
    Egil grunted.
    “Maybe we’re more amusing when we’re drunk?”
    “Probably.”
    Nix planted a fist on the bar. “Then I say that we
aren’t
drunk is an unpardonable transgression. Gadd, you’re the priest of this temple. You’ve failed us.”
    The easterner looked a question at him, smiled tentatively.
    “But the failure can be rectified, by the gods,” Nix said. “Drinks, Gadd, and quickly, that we might exorcise with spirits the spirit of sober reflection that vexes us currently.”
    Nix eyed Egil. Not so much as a grin.
    “You’ve got to play along here, priest.”
    Egil offered a rueful smile. “I know what you’re doing. It’s appreciated. I’m fine, though.”
    Nix wasn’t so sure. He thumped Egil on the shoulder. “I’m serious about the drinking, though. But that’s the only thing I want to be serious about. Yeah?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Seen enough shite in the last few days. We deserve a drink.”
    They tapped mugs and set to it.
    —
    Nix awoke later, head down at the bar, his face buried in his crossed arms. He blinked away the film coating his eyelids, glanced blearily around. Egil sat on the stool beside him, his huge arms thrown over the bar as if embracing it, the side of his face to the wood, snoring heavily, a small pool of drool collecting under his cheek. A single clay lamp flickered on the bar and dying embers glowed in the large central hearth. Nix had no idea of the time, though the hours had to be small. The common room was empty.
    He smacked his lips, mouth dry, head muzzy. He