Book of Iron by Elizabeth Bear Page A

hammer with her fingertips and slide it toward her. Mud and grit stained her trousers to the knee. Her fingers blanched white where they pressed the haft. She stood, dragging it toward her, and turned back to the anvil.
    She swung the hammer high.
    “Guardian!” Bijou cried, stepping toward him just as the hammer crashed down.
    His head, only, swiveled, the rest of his body as motionless as a praying insect’s. “Do not interfere,” he said.
    Bijou stopped beyond his reach. She sidled one step, another. “What Dr. Liebelos said about saving the world. You have to get the book out of Maledysaunte, is that right?”
    He simply regarded her. Gasping, Dr. Liebelos drew the hammer back for another effort.
    “Because it will corrupt her?”
    The corners of his mouth twitched.
    She sidled another step. Now his back was to Salamander and the ragged Maledysaunte, who seemed now to choke on every breath. She had gone to her knees again. She clutched her throat, and with the second hammer blow fell to her side, legs kicking as if she were suffering a seizure. Perhaps she was, but Riordan and Kaulas were beside her to guide her down.
    “You don’t care about saving the world,” Bijou said. Of course there was no point in explaining his own objectives to him—but she needed to keep his attention, and Prince Salih had already demonstrated that a direct assault was not the way to do it. And even constructs loved to talk about themselves…
    The hammer rang again. Bijou didn’t steal a look. She knew the book—or the Book—would be taking shape on the anvil. It didn’t matter.
    What mattered was keeping the guardian’s attention.
    She said, “I think I understand you better than that. You don’t want the book out of Maledysaunte because it will make her some kind of witch-queen. You want it out of her because it won’t . Isn’t that the truth? She’s strong enough to live with it. And as long as it’s in her, it’s not destroying anything else.”
    She was guessing, and his expressionless mask of a face gave her no advice as to whether she was guessing correctly. The hammer fell again; this time the thud was duller, as if something interposed between it and the anvil.
    Maledysaunte arched against the mud, gagging on a scream. Kaulas leaned above her, holding her shoulders down. Her feet kicked brutally, leaving long gouges where the bootheels scraped.
    “O Child,” said the Guardian. “You are blind.”
    “Fine,” Bijou said, irritation rendering her incautious. “So tell us what you do want. Did it ever occur to you to ask for help?”
    It certainly never occurred to me , a little voice mocked.
    “The book must be destroyed,” he said. “That is the only way I can be free of this existence.”
    “You must have had centuries to destroy it,” Bijou shot back. “Just getting around to it now?”
    “I cannot wield the hammer,” he said.
    “And if it can’t be destroyed?” Riordan said, rising up and leaving Maledysaunte to Kaulas.
    Oh, Kaalha, she prayed. Don’t let him make the guardian turn around. If he caught sight of Salamander…
    But Riordan came around a circle to confront the guardian at her side. “Then better to have it out wreaking havoc in the world than in safe containment, aye? In the witch’s head, it can sit safe forever. Where’s its mischief, in hands like hers?”
    Whatever the guardian might have replied, it was lost in Salamander’s scream as she suddenly stood up and hurled her arms over her head. It wasn’t any kind of magic, just sheer stagecraft.
    The guardian turned in his footprints, a hand coming up as if he meant to reach out and grab Salamander by the throat.
    Something pale and swift struck from the water’s edge, hurling its long length through the mud to sink needle-fine fangs in the guardian’s calf. Bijou had a brief, confused image of hissing and a flickering tongue, a muscular writhing and then a shape like a bent bow as the amphisbaena whipped its other head