Book of Iron by Elizabeth Bear

arm, bound in hammered iron, the cover hinged more like a door than like the spine of a book.
    Bijou saw Salamander nerve herself. She saw the moment when the white Wizard made the decision to step forward, under the hammer-blow. She saw Maledysaunte sagging, dropping to one knee in the limestone-laced mud of the cave floor, her head drooping as if her neck were a wilting flower’s stem.
    And she saw Prince Salih step in as Liebelos drew the hammer back to her heels for one more tremendous swing, and catch the haft in his right hand.
    “No more,” he said.
    Liebelos tugged. The hammer would not come free. She released the hammer haft and whirled on the prince. “You must let me continue,” she said. “The fate of worlds hangs in the balance.”
    “A life hangs in the balance,” Prince Salih said. He lifted the hammer one-handed, reversed it, and let the head rest on the floor. Upon the anvil before him, the book began to fade.
    Maledysaunte lifted her head. She gasped in a breath, harsh and rattling.
    “No,” said the guardian, in his voice without echoes. “This is not what happens now.”
    He reached out, a gesture as effortless as the flow of oil across water, and grasped Salih’s right forearm. His hand closed. Bijou heard the sharp wet snap of a bone breaking.
    Another man might have gone to his knees. Salih released the hammer-haft; it stayed steady for a long moment before falling sideways. Before it touched the mud, Salih had a pistol in his left hand, pressed against the guardian’s abdomen below the ribs.
    He fired.
    Pain as if someone had clapped a spiked palm to each of Bijou’s ears lanced through her head.
    The guardian’s flesh jumped away from the impact as if the bullet had been a stone thrown into still water. The bullet thudded against the far cavern wall. Limestone powdered in the impact. The sound was lost in the thunder still ringing in Bijou’s ears. Then it collapsed back as seamlessly, leaving him whole and untouched.
    He looked at Prince Salih as if terribly disappointed in him. The prince, dazed by his own gunshot or the pain of his broken arm, shook his head.
    Carelessly, the guardian extended his arm and threw Prince Salih against the far wall. Bijou did not see him strike. She was already moving forward, Ambrosias at her side.
    The guardian fixed her with a stare from the bottomless, lusterless black pools of his eyes. “Don’t.”
    Bijou froze. She couldn’t hold his gaze; she twisted her face aside to see Maledysaunte climbing to her feet, the dead bard supporting her. Salamander crouched down, clutching her knees as if trying to make herself impossibly tiny and so go unnoticed. Kaulas stood over her, the picture of a protector, his kaftan flaring wide in the cavern’s constant breeze.
    Bijou couldn’t hear his voice, but she wouldn’t even had needed to read his lips to know what words they were shaping. “I said not to trust him.”
    “We didn’t,” Bijou snapped back, her words muffled and dull inside her own head.
    The guardian’s words were not lost in the crashing thunder ringing through Bijou’s ears. They sounded just as flat as ever, and just as pellucidly clear.
    “Dr. Liebelos,” he said, “pray pick up your hammer again.”
    Belatedly, it occurred to Bijou to wonder how it was that he spoke their language, if he was a creature of ancient Erem.
    Bijou could not spare a glance for Prince Salih. She hoped he was alive. In her peripheral vision, she saw Maledysaunte struggling to stand, propped by Riordan on one side. Kaulas moved forward to assist her, coincidentally screening Salamander from the guardian’s view. Behind him, Salamander—still hunched piteously—dug her fingers into the sand.
    The ringing was dying down, though not fading away completely. Through it, Bijou heard Salamander saying over and over, “Don’t hurt my mother. Don’t harm my mother.”
    Dr. Liebelos approached cautiously, crouching and reaching out to hook the haft of the