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Shandy suddenly remembered the dead, dried shrub he'd seen in Erebus, and he realized that this would probably be the last of Sawney's lifetimes. "How does it happen," he asked gently, "that one powerful enough to plant blood there, and use the blood and sea water magic here to buy many lives, can deteriorate? Can lose the big magics, can become ... simple?"
Sawney smiled and raised one white eyebrow. "Like me, you mean, eh? Iron."
Though embarrassed that the old man had understood him so clearly, Shandy pressed on. "Iron? What do you mean?"
"You must have smelt it. The magic smell, you know? Like a pan left on a hot fire. Wide-awake iron. And fresh blood smells that way too, and magic needs fresh blood, so obviously there's iron in it. Ever hear the story that the gods came here out of the sky as splashes of red-hot iron? No? Why, the very oldest writers claimed that the souls of stars were in the stuff, because it was the last thing a star exhaled before it started to die."
Shandy was afraid the old man had lost his lucidity again, for obviously there was no iron in blood or stars, but he decided to invest one more question in this tangent. "So how does it diminish magicians?"
"Hm?" Sawney blew across the mouth of the bottle, producing a low hooting. "Oh, it doesn't."
Shandy thumped his fist into the sand. "Damn it, governor, I need to know - "
"It's cold iron that messes 'em up - solid iron. It's finished, you see, you can't do magic around it because all the magic is finished too, before you even start. You ever make wine?"
Shandy rolled his eyes. "No, but I know about vinegar and lice, thanks. I - "
"You know vino de Jerez? Sherry, the English call it. Or port?"
"Sure, governor," said Shandy tiredly, wondering if the old man was going to ask him to fetch him a bottle.
"Well, you know how they're made? You know why some of 'em are so sweet?"
"Uh ... they're fortified. They mix brandy into the wine and it stops the fermentation, so some sugar can remain in it and not all turn to alcohol."
"Good boy. Yes, the brandy stops the fermentation. And so you still have sugar, yes, but for it to change to alcohol now is not possible. And what is this stuff, this brandy, that stops everything so?"
"Well," said Shandy, mystified, "it's distilled wine."
"Verdad. A product of fermentation makes more fermentation impossible; do you see?"
Shandy's heart was beating faster, for he thought he almost did see. "Cold iron, solid iron, works on magic the way brandy works on fermentation," he said unsteadily. "Is that what you mean?"
"Seguro! A cold iron knife is very good for getting rid of a ghost. Those stories you have heard, I'm sure. With a lot of iron around, solid iron and cold, you still have blood, like the sugar in the sherry, but it cannot be used for magic. Bocors carry no iron, and they do magic, and they are very lacking in blood. You've seen their gums? And around the houses of the most powerful ones is a fine rusty red dust of," he leaned closer and whispered, "iron." Shandy felt goosebumps starting up along his arms. "And in the Old World," he said softly, "magic stopped being an important factor of life at around the same time iron came into general use for tools and weapons."
Sawney nodded and smiled wryly through his wild white beard. "Not a ... coincidence." He blew across the neck of his bottle again: hoot. "And any magically resurrected consciousness is damaged by proximity to cold iron. (Hoot.) A little at a time. (Hoot.) By the time I learned that, it was too late for me. It turns out that ever since I came out of that damned hole in Florida I should have been staying clear of iron - not wear it, not hold it, not even eat something that was cooked in an iron pot! (Hoot.) High kings used to have to live that way in the Old World, before magic was quite all gone there. Hell. Salads and raw legumes and such you have to eat if you pursue it."
"No meat?" asked Shandy, who'd thought of something.
"Oh, aye, lots of meat, for magic power but also for plain strength, because sorcerors tend to get so pale and dizzy and weak. But of course it's got to be meat that wasn't killed or cleaned or cooked with anything iron. (Hoot.) But you know, I'm not sorry. I've had two hundred extra years of living like a normal man, doing what I please. I'd really be crazy if I'd lived the whole time like some damned bocor, worrying about every bite I ate and terrified to pound a nail into a board."
"So do you know any way, governor, that I could use cold iron to break a sorceror who's so fresh from the Fountain that he's still got the dust of Erebus in the creases of his boots?"
Sawney stared at him for a long moment and then put the bottle down. "Maybe. Who?"
Shandy decided to be honest with him. "Benjamin Hurwood. Or Ulysse Segundo, as he's apparently calling himself now. He's the - "
"Yo conozco, the one with the missing arm. The one who's grooming his daughter's body for his wife's ghost. Poor child - you notice she's fed only greens, and biscuits kept in wood casks? They want her to be conductive magically, but they don't want any strength of will in her, so no meat at all."
Shandy nodded, having realized the significance of Beth Hurwood's odd diet a few moments ago.
"Sure, I'll tell you how to break him. Stab him with a sword."
"Governor," said Shandy in an agony of impatience, "I need something more than that. He - "
"You think I'm simple? Haven't you been listening? Link your blood to the cold iron of the sword. Make the atoms of blood and iron line up the way a compass needle lines up to face north. Or vice versa. It's all relative. A working magical force will add energy to it, to its own undoing. Or else the force is undone because the lined up iron system is so energetic, you see? If you don't like the idea of a penny falling to the ground, look at it as the ground rushing up to hit the motionless penny, right? (Hoot.)"
"Great, so how do I do it?"
