by A. H. Lee
Roland smiled into his ale. “We messed around a lot. We...practiced on each other. But we always said we were just friends. Marcus was the one who started bringing me to places like the Tipsy Knave. We had rather different tastes. Marcus liked the brawny farm boys fresh from the countryside—rough hands and freckles and shy eyes, that was his type. He liked soldiers, too—the ones who’d sneak out to places like this. My tastes ran elsewhere.”
Sairis quirked an eyebrow. “If you say, ‘To wanted outlaws...’”
Roland choked on a laugh. “Students, mostly. People who cared passionately about dead languages and art and the merits of double-stitched binding.”
Sairis gave a nervous laugh.
“Glasses and ink-stained fingers and pedantic lectures on—”
“Alright, alright,” muttered Sairis.
“I like talking to people who care about something,” said Roland. “Even if it’s something the rest of the world thinks is unimportant. I like educated people.”
Sairis stared at his drink. “Is that why you came up to me the other evening?”
Roland shrugged. “I liked the look of you.”
Sairis’s laugh escaped in a hiss between his teeth. “Roland, no one has ever liked the look of me.”
Roland shrugged. “I’m not sure how you could know that. As you keep telling me, you don’t get out much.”
Touché.
“Anyway, Marcus and I spent our teenage years sneaking into places like this, kissing each other in the hayloft, and having grand romantic adventures, though the best parts were usually with other people. I was going to the border when I came of age. I knew that. Marcus insisted he was going with me.”
Roland paused, watching the room, not looking at Sairis.
“Did you tell him how you felt?” asked Sairis with a sudden sense of dread. “Did he die without knowing?”
Roland shut his eyes. “You’d think it would be easy with a close friend...someone who’d seen all your firsts. You’d think it would be easy to say, ‘I love you.’ But it...isn’t.”
Sairis felt truly sorry for him.
“Marcus was an incredible person,” said Roland, “but he was also an absolute tomcat. He wanted to fuck everything. He even tried it with girls a few times. He wasn’t ready to...to devote himself to one person. I’m not sure he ever expected to do that. I think he thought that being the way we are...loving men...for him, that meant a life of sexual adventure and rotating partners. I tried to keep up, but I wanted...” Roland wiped a hand across his face. After a moment, he continued, “You’d think it would be easy to state your feelings to such a close friend, but there’s so much at stake. What if he had pulled away from me? What if he’d decided we couldn’t be even casual lovers if I was going to catch feelings like that?”
“So you didn’t tell him.”
Roland shook his head. “I think maybe he knew. On the border, there wasn’t a lot of opportunity for those kinds of adventures. We didn’t have anyone except each other most of the time. But I never said, ‘I love this, and I don’t want it to end.’ And then it did.”
Sairis wondered whether Roland had ever told this story before to anyone. Probably not. He wondered if he should pat Roland’s hand. Wasn’t that something normal people did to offer comfort? They touched each other? But somehow, when Sairis played the idea through his head, it just seemed extraordinarily awkward. Instead, he said, “That’s when you took a shot at Hastafel...even though you knew he had a soul-eating sword.”
Roland gave an I-knew-it-was-stupid shrug. “I almost got him. He was down on one knee when I chipped that godsdamned glass sword of his. It should have shattered.”
Not with those wards.
Roland continued, “Losing Marcus was like losing a brother and a lover and a friend all at the same time. When I came here two nights ago, I was looking for a familiar place and good memories. I wasn’t... Well, I wouldn’t have spoken to just anybody.”
Sairis still didn’t know how to respond. Across the room, a flashily dressed man had stepped onto the stage to sing, accompanied by the lute. The audience was joining in for the chorus, which proved creatively obscene. Daphne and Anton were taking turns at the dartboard and either did not understand the lyrics or were impervious to embarrassment. They’re having the kind of date that royal couples surely never get to have. I wonder if Daphne planned that. She seems like the planning type.
Sairis forced himself to say something. “I’m sorry, Roland.”
Roland nodded, not quite meeting Sairis’s eyes. Sairis wondered whether he was already regretting having told such a personal story. Or perhaps it was a relief to have told someone, anyone. Even an apprentice necromancer in service to the crown’s sworn enemy. But then again, maybe it’s safer, telling me. It’s not as though I can repeat it to anyone. Maybe important people only ever tell their deepest secrets to people who don’t matter.
Sairis felt immediately uncharitable. That’s how I would think if I were a prince. But Roland isn’t like me. Sairis licked his lips and tried a bit of truth. “I’ve never had anything like that...with anyone. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose such a person. And to have regrets.”
Roland nodded. “I wish I had told him.” He gave a sad little laugh. “But more than anything, I just wish he were still here.” He hesitated. “Is it my turn to ask a question?”
Sairis shifted uneasily. “I suppose.”
“The necromancy. How does it work? You said you’re a natural. What does that mean?”
“Oh.” Sairis sat up a little straighter. He was on firm ground here. “Most magicians soak up magic from the Shattered Sea. I can’t. I absorb magic from death. Specifically the phase transition from life into death. Magical energy is released, and I have a peculiar ability to capture and channel it. I do this unconsciously all the time. I can’t not do it.”
Roland toyed with his glass. “You mean, anyone dying in the city...”
Sairis nodded. “The closer I am physically to death, the more power I absorb.” He hesitated. “I wouldn’t have been able to come back in the strategy room if there hadn’t been people dying nearby.” Sairis saw the beginnings of discomfort on Roland’s face, and some part of him welcomed it. He felt a perverse need to drive the knife deeper—whether into himself or into Roland, he couldn’t have said. “Every person who died in that room gave me a bit more energy to heal myself. Finally, enough of them died, and I came back across the River.”
Roland looked away. “And when the dead walk?”
“Necromancers are excellent at binding ghosts. We’re as good at binding ghosts as sorcerers are at binding demons.”
Roland frowned. “Is it always the ghost of the person who died?”
A perceptive question. “Not always, no. We’re pretty good at flesh golems—a corpse animated with simple intent and bone-memory. The actual ghost is long gone. It is also possible to send a fresh ghost into a corpse other than its own. A human ghost into a dead animal, for instance. Or the other way around. Although they don’t like it and tend to resist.”
Roland shuddered. “I should think so. That sounds like a horrible thing to do to a person.”
Sairis did not dispute this.
Roland folded his big hands around his now-empty glass. “Have you ever done that to someone you cared about?”
Sairis wanted to say, You forget that I’ve never cared about anyone. But he couldn’t quite bring himself to utter such a lie. He glanced at Roland and saw the real question in his eyes. Would you ever do that to me?
Sairis shocked himself by reaching out and peeling Roland’s hand off the ale glass. His fingers curled into Roland’s bigger palm. Like a serpent into a bird’s nest, Sairis thought. But then Roland folded Sairis’s hand up in both of his, and he no longer felt like an intruder.
Sairis wished that he could take back everything he’d just said about necromancy. Because for once in his life, he wanted someone to like him. “I’m not good at this,
” he whispered.
“You’re doing fine,” Roland whispered back.
“Liar.”
“I already said you were terrifying.”
I can be more terrifying.
“But,” continued Roland, “I like listening to pedantic scholars explaining their hobbies.”
A nervous laugh bubbled out of Sairis. “I can be far more pedantic.” That’s better than terrifying, right?
Roland ran his thumb around Sairis’s wrist bone, and suddenly Sairis remembered exactly how Roland’s lips felt against his, exactly how it felt to have a leg wrapped around Roland’s firm waist, exactly how it felt to lose all logical thought in his arms.
“Sair?”
He blinked and came back to earth.
“How important is it that you do something with that sword tonight?”
Sairis sighed. “Pretty important. We’d better go. Well, I’d better anyway.”
“I’ll come with you.”
Sairis tried not to look ridiculously pleased. “Do you think your sister will be alright?” he asked, peering across the room.
Daphne and Anton seemed to have made friends with a couple of gentlemen. As he watched, November and Hazel came out from behind the bar and joined the table. It looked like they might begin a game of cards.
Roland gave a snort of laughter. “I think Daph always felt left out when Marcus and I ran off to places like this. I think she’s having the time of her life.”
“Anton doesn’t look too scandalized,” observed Sairis.
“No,” said Roland with a hint of wonder. “He really doesn’t.”
Chapter 26. The Mouse
“I can’t believe you had that thing all the way through your body two days ago,” muttered Roland as he watched Sairis take out the sword and draw a salt circle around it in the corner of the room.
“It was uncomfortable,” agreed Sairis.
Roland snorted. “You do remember that I saw you last night, right? You were more dead than alive. You fainted.”
Sairis paused in the act of writing runes in spelled chalk. And you carried me in here. He was sorry not to have been awake for that. When heroines swooned in stories and the hero caught them, they tended to drift in and out of consciousness with fluttering eyelashes and sweetly parted lips. Sairis, on the other hand, couldn’t remember a damned thing after collapsing on the stairs. He doubted very much that anything about him had looked fluttery or sweet.
“What I meant,” said Roland patiently, “is that you basically came back from the dead this morning. You must be completely exhausted.”
“I did sleep for about sixteen hours.”
Roland scratched his head. “Is that all it takes?”
Sairis laughed, disturbing the salt. “Please do not distract me right now.” Roland was enough of a distraction without saying a word. He’d changed into soft clothes for bed. The thin cotton shirt left little to the imagination, and the short pants gave a view of his calves and thighs that did not bear thinking about. Not while Sairis was dealing with Hastafel’s thrice-damned sword.
“The mouse looks hungry,” said Roland. “Shall I feed it?”
“No,” said Sairis without looking up, “I will resolve its hunger shortly.”
“I’m really not sure I can get used to you killing animals.”
“I am not asking you to get used to it, only to be silent.”
“I had this dog once.”
“Roland... God’s blood!” Sairis jerked back from the salt circle so hard that he sat down.
Roland was across the room before Sairis could get his legs under him.
“Back!” hissed Sairis. “Away from the sword! Back!”
But Roland was staring and Sairis could tell he’d already seen it—a face reflected in the blade. A pair of terrified eyes, and more behind. Mouths opened in silent screams. Hands reached like claws, desperate, dragging each other back while others pushed endlessly forward.
Roland only hesitated for a second. Then he wrapped his arms around Sairis’s chest and hauled him up and back. As the angle of the light changed, the images reflected in the blade vanished. Now it was just a sword, lying in a circle of salt and partially finished runes on the far side of the room.
Roland backed up until he ran into the bed, dragging Sairis with him. He stopped there, and Sairis could feel Roland’s heart hammering between his shoulder blades. He could feel the man’s muscular warmth through the thin cotton shirt. Roland’s arms, wrapped around Sairis’s chest, felt as immovable as steel.
That should have been alarming. Sairis had spent most of his life trying not to get pinned by a knight. He should not have wanted it to go on forever.
“What—?” began Roland hoarsely.
“It’s a spirit vessel,” said Sairis. “Usually they have demons or fae creatures in them, but I think this one has real people. Magical creatures can lie dormant inside a vessel. Human ghosts can’t.” Sairis made an effort to move his hand. To his regret, Roland immediately released him.
“So they’re trapped in there? Awake? Conscious?”
“Something like that.” Sairis stepped away, carefully not looking at Roland. “Those golems you’ve been dealing with—I think they were made with the ghosts trapped by this sword. It’s drawing magic from them. From their futile attempts to cross the River, I think.”
“Can you do anything about it?” demanded Roland.
“I hope so,” said Sairis, “but I need to cross the River myself to find out. I need to spirit-walk. And you’re right—I am too tired for that. I’m afraid I might make a mistake.”
“Then don’t do it tonight.”
Sairis nodded. “To manifest like this on the physical plane, the ghosts must be quite powerful. They’re not far across the River. Some part of them is very much on this side of it.”
Roland gave a ragged laugh. “So the sword is haunted.”
“If you want to think of it that way, yes.” Sairis forced himself to cross the room again. “I am going to finish warding it. And tomorrow I’ll have a walk-about on the Styx. In the meantime, I’ll make sure that mouse isn’t hungry anymore.”
Warding the sword took about an hour. By the time Sairis was finished, he was well and truly spent. Activating the wards took more magic than he felt it ought to. That, or I’m not quite back to a hundred percent after losing all the blood in my body.
Then there was the mouse. Sairis caught it by the tail and broke its neck with one swift slap against the floor. Getting upset about this is idiotic, prince. I’ve done things I should be ashamed of. This isn’t one of them. And yet he could not bring himself to look at Roland where he sat on his bed.
Sairis pricked his finger and said the words that only another magician would have understood. He offered his blood to the ghost of the mouse. Newly killed creatures rarely wanted to leave. They were easy to bribe with blood, particularly the blood of a magician. Sairis had a theory that the blood of necromancers was especially intoxicating to ghosts, although he hadn’t met enough other necromancers to get many opinions on this theory. Karkaroth thought it was nonsense. They like magic. That’s all. Lots of magic in the blood has lots of appeal to a ghost.
The ghost could not drink without Sairis’s permission, of course, and his permission came with requirements. It was a contract, sealed with blood. Sairis waited patiently as the little creature took the blood, soaking up a bit of Sairis’s magic. Now the mouse’s ghost could stay on the mortal plane, doing whatever things a mousy ghost might do. Sairis’s instructions had been specific, though. The mouse had a goal now, a simple goal for a simple mind.
Sairis laid the splinter of mirror from the strategy room beside the mouse’s body. ”This,” he told it, ”this magic. I want you to find it in the place where I will send you. When you find it, you will come back to me, making note of the way.”
Then Sairis reached out with his still-bloody finger and wrote a rune on the full-length mirror that Daphne had acquired for him earli
er in the day. ”You will hunt here,” he told the ghost of the mouse. “Go.”
Sairis knew Roland was still watching by the sharp intake of breath as something moved in the mirror. The faintest gray fog of a mouse sat up from the animal’s corpse where it was reflected in the glass. It rose on ghostly feet and tottered about for a moment as though getting its bearings. Then it scampered under the reflection of the dresser and was gone.
Sairis turned to see Roland watching in fascination. “It’s...in the mirror now?”
Sairis nodded. “The world of mirrors is a strange one. Scholars disagree about where it really lies. Is it part of the Dreamscape? Is it in Faerie? Is it in Death? Somewhere between—some estuary where the Lethe meets the Styx? Is it a kind of pocket world? Is it another dimension? We don’t know, and that makes it more dangerous. You can get lost in mirrors. That’s why most people only use them for scrying, not for spirit-walking. People who mess around with mirrors end up dying in them.”
Roland licked his lips, trying to understand. “So you sent the mouse?”
Sairis nodded. “It’s small, and its instincts tell it to hide and not to be seen. Because it’s a ghost, it will find the smell of blood and magic extremely interesting. It will be able to match the scent from that fragment of the glass as well as any hound. Mice are good at running mazes, good at repeating patterns. That’s how they find food and return to it. If the mouse finds the source of the magic, I’m confident it will be able to lead me back to it. This is less dangerous than me trying to trace the magic through the mirrors myself.”
Roland did not look reassured. “As plans go, that sounds...fragile.”
Sairis felt suddenly too tired for this. He moved across the room, blew out the candle, and proceeded to strip off his trousers in the dark on the far side of his bed. “Necromancy is fragile. People think it’s such powerful magic. And it is. But dead things are brittle. My hold on them is made of spiderweb and stardust. It’s delicate magic.”
“I didn’t mean that as an insult,” said Roland. “I was only worried about you following a mouse around in the mirrors after you talked about getting lost and dying.”