A flur­ry of snow whis­tled into the pub. Boots clomped on creak­ing oak. A gloved hand pound­ed shut the door, swollen in its frame.

“Blimey. The heat’s relief,” said Ewan, stamp­ing scabs of snow and muck from his hob­nails. He brushed frost from his bris­tled chin, licked frozen ooze from a split lip.

“Aye,” said Row, just behind. She unlaced her cape with crooked, white-scarred hands. “Whiskey’ll make it bet­ter.”

They stomped to the bar: A long, pol­ished oak-bench hung with sausages and wick­er-clad bot­tles oppo­site a brick hearth just as wide. There, in a ver­i­ta­ble cave of mason­ry grum­bled a blis­ter­ing fire. It hunched in a nest of coals and deep ash, gnawed the glow­ing ends of pines log pushed into its lair.

At the bar sat a col­lec­tion of three sol­dier­ly types in bur­gundy win­ter woolens and jack­boots. Patch­es adorned their coats, shaped like ros­es couched in thorns. They sat amidst lit­tered glass­es and spiked helms, speak­ing low.

Ewan found a stool, undid his gloves and brass coat but­tons. Neath the open duster showed a belt hung with no short­age of steel. Steel, and a fat purse, which Ewan removed. He sat, fin­ger­ing the clasp. Row joined, near­est the sol­diers, rest­ed elbows on the bench.

“Bot­tle o’ rye, your best,” said Ewan to the grey-plait­ed pub­li­can. He thumbed her an iron-bound gold pound from the purse.

“And what­ev­er food ye got on,” said Row.

The pub­li­can nod­ded. Broad crys­tal tum­blers appeared atop the bar, then a square brown bot­tle. Ewan popped the cork, sniffed. “Love­ly stuff. Reminds me of home.” He poured for both of them.

“Aye,” said Row. She wrapped crooked fin­gers round her drink, raised it in mock toast. “To Jen­go­ry, home of good whiskey and sil­ly bas­tards.”

Ewan punched her shoul­der. Whiskey sloshed. “And to gold­en ven­tures aplen­ty.” They drank.

“Hey now.”

Row turned, eye­brow raised. One of the sol­diers, a bro­ken-toothed man with a scrub-brush mus­tache, had leaned over. His fel­lows, a pim­ply woman and green-eyed man, leered behind.

“Aye?” Said Row, over her shoul­der.

“Cou­ple of cut­ters, are you not, ya?” said the sol­dier, nod­ding. He slurred a hint.

“True, that,” said Ewan, squint­ing. “And you’re Lothrheimers. You speak good Firl­ish”

“Come from out of town, have you?” said the mus­tache.

“From the last coun­ty over.”

“Fresh off a ven­ture, I’ll bet.” The sol­diers nod­ded exag­ger­at­ed­ly. “With all pret­ty gold in yer sacks, free to spend.”

“What’s it to ye?” snapped Row. She turned, rest­ed a scarred fist on the counter. Her clenched knuck­les squeaked like glass mar­bles.

“Row…” hissed Ewan, straight­en­ing. He slipped a hand into his coat, flicked his eyes about. The pub­li­can had gone. The oth­er sol­diers had tensed, risen from their stools.

The Lothrheimer bared bro­ken pick­ets of teeth. “See, we are much alike,” said he, creep­ing clos­er, exhal­ing fumes of liquor and bad liv­er. “Get to drink and fight, wear all swords and armor, ya.” He turned a lip, clown­ish. Row met his pin­prick gaze, seething.

“ ‘Cept we don’t got get paid half so well.” * His eyes flicked to Row’s fist. “Nor have such pret­ty hands.”

He lunged, seized Row’s wrist. The oth­er sol­diers leapt to tack­le the cut­ters. Stools clat­tered to the floor. Glass­es smashed and bounced. Row stag­gered back, thrust her free palm at the sol­diers.

A series of loud, ener­getic clicks split the air, fast as a flut­ter­ing heart­beat. The bro­ken-toothed man abrupt­ly ceased his assault, winced, released his grip. Behind, his fel­low Lothrheimers recoiled, began to cry out.

Row snarled, thrust both scar-spi­dered hands at the shirk­ing sol­diers. The click­ing inten­si­fied, quick­ened. Red blotch­es sprout­ed on the tri­o’s flesh, grew to bur­bling blis­ters. They gasped, then screamed. One, the pim­ply woman, bolt­ed, steam­ing. Ewan seized her by the belt, swung her cross the room into the blaz­ing hearth. Ash bil­lowed. At the bar, hang­ing bot­tles burst their corks and spewed under the boil­ing scour of the cut­ter’s crooked hands.

Abrupt­ly, the click­ing quit. Row slumped, rest­ed quiv­er­ing palms on her knees. At her feet, the two Lothrheimers squirmed, mewl­ing, shed­ding steam and smoke from smol­der­ing hair and boiled eyes. The sol­dier Ewan had thrown lay afore the hearth, fee­bly pat­ted flames from her smol­der­ing uni­form.

“Shite,” said Ewan, look­ing about. Wine and spir­its still trick­led from burst bot­tles behind the bar. “Pub­keep­’s gone. Bet she were in on it. Bas­tards.” He approached his fel­low cut­ter. “Sup­pose you’re fine?”

Clum­si­ly, Row seized their bot­tle from the bar, drank eager­ly from the neck. “Aye,” she coughed. “ ‘M fine. Let’s find some­place else.”

She turned to the door, clapped Ewan on the back. He flinched under her touch.

“What?” said Row.

Ewan hes­i­tat­ed, looked to the ruined bar, the wrecks of sol­diers, then the yel­low eyes of his friend the magi­cian. He pat­ted her in turn, gin­ger­ly. “Noth­in,” he said, grim­ly.

“Let’s get out of here.”

Rolf snapped his fin­gers, lit a cig­a­rette in the result­ing flame. He puffed, lean­ing back in his seat, and shook the fire from his cal­loused thumbtip. Beside him, a woman with cropped red hair frowned. Rolf raised an eye­brow at her.

“Showoff,” scoffed the woman, plucked up a flute of wine. Rolf smirked back.

Round the table, the oth­er din­ers chuck­led. One, a long-nosed lad not dis­sim­i­lar to Rolf, spoke. “Pish posh, Pri­cille. You’re just mad he did­n’t offer you a light.” The oth­ers chuck­led. 

“Magi­cians,” Pri­cille scoffed, avert­ed her gaze. About the rose gar­den where they sat, a dozen more tables thronged with sim­i­lar long-nosed fam­i­ly. Slad in light suits, and many in navy blue, steel-accent­ed Firl­ish Navy uni­forms. Ttter­ing and drink­ing, some­times amus­ed­ly pluck­ing flir­ty rose pix­ies from their shoul­ders.

“Real­ly, though,” said the pre­vi­ous lad, wav­ing a glass. “By the fam­i­ly’s stan­dard, your fiancé’s hard­ly show­ing off. Not in the least.” 

Rolf nod­ded, wig­gled his fin­gers. Thin, white scars, some still dot­ted by suture marks, marred his long dig­its. “This is noth­ing, com­par­a­tive­ly. ‘Spe­cial­ly to our elders.”

He set his free hand on Pri­cille’s shoul­der, leaned to speak con­spir­a­to­ri­al­ly.

“See them?” Rolf said. He point­ed with his cig­a­rette, indi­cat­ed a table of offi­cers in Acad­e­my sash­es. “My aunt Hurli and some friends from the Acad­e­my. See their gloves?” Pri­cille nod­ded. 

Rolf squint­ed, waved the smoke. “Wear them for the scars. Each of them has a full hand each, at least. No par­lor tricks, either.”

“What can they do?”

Rolf exhaled dra­mat­i­cal­ly. “Jol­ly impres­sive shite. Dead­ly, like. Blow out your ears; melt your skin; poi­son the lot of us ten times over.”

Pri­cille frowned into her wine, then at Rolf. “They don’t actu­al­ly do that, do they?”

“No. Not any more, at least. We hard­ly know they ever did, in the first place. For the Marines, you know.”

“Why have them, then?”

Roft chuck­led. “Well, why does any magi­cian prac­tice the art.” He shrugged. “Because he can.”

A thin cousin across the table piped up. “Grand­pa­pa’s used his tricks, that’s for cer­tain.” She nod­ded to an old man some tables away, his waxy skin pulled thin­ly over sunken cheeks and knot­ty, mis­matched, tat­tooed knuck­les. “He’ll tell you all about the spe­cial oper­a­tions stuff, for the Crown.”

“Awful sto­ries, but impres­sive,” said the long-nosed lad. “A real magi­cian. Right envi­able.”

Rolf and his cousins nod­ded. The thin woman grinned, spoke low. “We sim­ply can’t wait for him to die.”

Pri­cille looked aghast. “That’s awful. Rolf, why?” 

Rolf raised his eye­brows at her. “For his knuck­le­bones, of course.”

Abscission

You can tell a magi­cian by the hands. By the knot­ted joints, the dig­i­tal scars; the rem­nant lines of surg­eries cut to wrest carpal and pha­lange from their fleshy beds. By the knuck­le­bones plucked and dis­card­ed in favor of potent arti­fi­cial sur­ro­gates.

These marred hands are the mark of magicianry’s most car­di­nal art: Abscis­sion, the sur­gi­cal replace­ment of human hand bones with struc­tures of rare device and latent pow­er.

Abscis­sion, though few prac­ti­tion­ers will admit it, is a rel­ic-art of high sor­cery; of the ter­ri­ble heights of body mod­i­fi­ca­tion so enjoyed by the sor­cer­er-kings of old. Only by the remem­bered ways of these kings can magi­cians reli­ably com­mit micro­surgery of such minu­tia and com­plex­i­ty as the exci­sion and replace­ment of their own fin­ger­bones. **

The daunt­ing com­plex­i­ty of such surgery, let alone threat of injury, is often suf­fi­cient to deter half-com­mit­ted prac­ti­tion­ers of the art. Appro­pri­ate­ly, ambi­tion is a trait aspir­ing magi­cians rarely lack. They’ll glad­ly screw their hands to the sur­gi­cal clamp, pro­ceed to slit skin, splay ten­don, mus­cle, lig­a­ment; and extract their moth­er-born bones. 

At this, many enough can suc­ceed, giv­en a bit of book-learn­ing and butch­ery. Few­er can set a new knuck­le­bone in place, fuse vein, lig­a­ment, and fick­le nerve to make a dig­it which again lives, let alone works and con­veys desired pow­ers. Few­er yet can even obtain a knuck­le­bone to implant, for such con­structs are pre­cious things indeed.

Every knuck­le­bone is a cov­et­ed mas­ter­piece of design, a prod­uct of not only sourced mar­row and bone, but of steel, stone, glass, and queer­er mate­ri­als beside. An intri­cate organ; desired by many, afford­ed by few, and under­stood in design and man­u­fac­ture by scarce­ly any at all.

Only the mer­est of magi­cians’ fin­ger­bones are com­mon­ly craft­ed today. They are rude tricks. Sim­ple mech­a­nisms, built from rote recipes and fit only for magi­cians of small pow­er and low aspi­ra­tion. † Greater bones are cov­et­ed things. They lan­guish, secret­ed neath silk gloves and jeal­ousy, fast in the hands of aris­to­crat prac­ti­tion­ers and dead sor­cer­ers; rarely used, if at all, but no less val­ued for their desue­tude.

Recipes for great knuck­le­bones are rare indeed, but not unknown. They are hid­den in deep tombs, scrawled in the page-mem­o­ries of incunab­u­la. Magi­cians devote long lives to the dis­cov­ery of these recipes, only to hide them away in jeal­ousy, often unused. To craft such bones is a ter­ri­ble task, in any case, often requir­ing no milder ingre­di­ents than price­less stones, con­den­sates of human flesh, or the pow­er of a leg­endary sor­cer­er’s stone.

Many folk, be they pos­sessed of art­ful goals or sim­ple greed, find the hands of liv­ing magi­cians to be objects of supreme cov­etous­ness. 

A brand of crim­i­nal exists which will glad­ly plot to sev­er the hands of known magi­cians. †† Magi­cians them­selves eager­ly inher­it the sev­ered dig­its of elder­ly rel­a­tives. ‡ The most devi­ous, name­ly those of Empereaux, oft con­spire against their kind, com­mit mur­der for new addi­tions to their hands.

It is bet­ter, per­haps, to hunt pre­cious bones not in the liv­ing, but at their source: The tombs of ancients. An ever-increas­ing num­ber of knuck­le­bones, arti­facts of a qual­i­ty and age oft unseen out­side the heights of rich magi­cian­ry, now rest in and cir­cu­late over the cal­loused fin­gers and gold-greased palms of magi­cian cut­ters. They are wrest­ed from old com­plex­es and ancient sites at a rate nev­er before expe­ri­enced, quick­ly find their way to hap­py buy­ers or the inex­pe­ri­enced hands of hedge magi­cians.

Note

Please see A Hand­ful of Sor­cery for a list of bones and the knuck­le­bones page in the game rules.

A selec­tion of knuck­le­bones most often found in the hands of cut­ters are detailed below:

• Match­stick. A steel thumb-bone, oft marked with a man­u­fac­tur­er’s stamp. Plen­ti­ful­ly avail­able in magi­cians’ cir­cles. Some days after implan­ta­tion, queer­ly broad, cal­loused pores form at the thumb tip. When scraped, they pro­duce a bead of volatile liq­uid, which read­i­ly ignites upon a sec­ond scrape. The flame is like that of a prop­er lighter, but larg­er. Every day, the bone pro­duces suf­fi­cient fuel to burn for a half minute. It does not, how­ev­er, inure the host thumb to the heat of any fire which may burn atop it. 
• Thun­der­crack. A porce­lain bone, made small for the first pha­lange and inlaid with cop­per con­tacts on the joint. When the joint is popped, it cre­ates a son­ic boom akin to that of a small light­ning strike. An effec­tive, deaf­en­ing weapon, but a haz­ardous one. Thun­der­crack bones require small quan­ti­ties of phos­phate salts in the host blood­stream in order to pop, and stiff­en dis­pleas­ing if not popped in some time.
• Germ. A lit­tle glass bone shaped for the fin­ger­tip pha­lange of the ring fin­ger. Con­tains a tiny, sus­pend­ed organ and float­ing cap­il­lar­ies. The organ in ques­tion varies, depend­ing on the bone’s make. Most are ven­om glands, cut from scor­pi­ons, weird fish, and young ser­pents. Oth­ers, rare ver­sions dug from the over­sized knuck­les of Naus­sians and oth­er such sor­cer­ers, con­tain glob­ules of plagued or blight­ed flesh. What­ev­er a germ bone con­tains, it will read­i­ly pro­duce. When its joint is popped, once per day, it will well a liq­uid car­ri­er for its devot­ed sub­stance at the pores of the host fin­ger­tip. 
• Woe. A cop­per metacarpal, thick­er than is nat­ur­al, with green glass joint-ends. Coiled gold rests neath the glass, and a long, con­cave focus­ing-plate lies along the bone’s under­side. Also known as “stoke bones” or “magi­cian’s fire,” bones of woe are a magi­cian’s most rec­og­niz­able and awful weapon. When acti­vat­ed, a queer ges­ture which requires lock­ing the involved joints, the bone begins to burst direct­ed, invis­i­ble radi­a­tion with every heart­beat, click­ing capac­i­tive­ly and loud­ly. This radi­a­tion quick­ly boils water and heats met­al. The effect of a sin­gle bone of woe is dif­fuse and inef­fec­tu­al at range, but scales with addi­tion­al, adja­cent bones, which serve to focus and inten­si­fy the bursts. Plac­ing one’s palms togeth­er fur­ther focus­es the effect, with prac­tice. A sin­gle bone at touch or close range caus­es sen­sa­tions of dread­ful burn­ing. Two may boil flesh at two meters, giv­en time. Three or four makes a weapon of rare hor­ror indeed. Cut­ters rarely earn more than one full hand. Woe bones’ oper­a­tive organ will only func­tion with an appro­pri­ate mea­sure of phos­phate salts in the blood­stream, and will greed­i­ly con­sume them.