Chains of Blood

by M. L. Spencer

  “Is there a better alternative?” the Prime Warden asked. Looking around from blank face to blank face, she shrugged. “I’ll heal him the moment he’s dampened. Hopefully, that will be fast enough.”

  Quin shook his head. “That’s too dangerous. If he dies, and you’re touching him—”

  He was right. A mage’s Gift spilled out of their body upon death. If Naia was touching Rylan the moment he died, then the Gift escaping his body would rush into her and add itself to the power she already had—a lethal amount, Gil was sure.

  Naia put her hand up, silencing him. “I’ll be careful.” She licked her lips. “All right.” She moved around to the end of the table and, bending over, placed both hands on Rylan’s chest. Then she looked up at the Sultan. “If this fails, I will have to let him go.”

  “So be it,” he said, his eyes dark, his lips drawn into a thin line.

  The Prime Warden nodded. Bowing her head, she closed her eyes. “I’m ready.”

  Quin took Rylan’s arm and pushed the bloody shirtsleeve back to his elbow. Then he drew his scimitar from its sheath. Gil’s palms broke out in a sweat as Quin set the edge of the blade across Rylan’s wrist.

  The Prime Warden said very calmly, “Do it.”

  At first, Gil didn’t realize anything had happened. Then he saw it: the sword had moved only a fraction, yet had sliced a deep cut into Rylan’s wrist. The wound gaped open, the exposed flesh white instead of pink.

  “There’s no blood,” Ashra observed. “Is he dead, then?”

  Quin sheathed his sword. “Time is catching up with him,” he said, taking a step back.

  Just as he finished speaking, beads of blood appeared all along the length of the gash, collecting in droplets that rolled away, running in thin rivulets. Fresh, warm blood spilled from Rylan’s body onto the table, drizzling to the floor, where it spread along the grout lines between tiles.

  Naia gasped, her body going stiff, as though mustering every drop of strength from every muscle on her skeleton. She remained like that, locked rigid, the knuckles of her hands turning a milky white. Her body started trembling, then shaking, as if convulsed. Quin reached for his wife, ready to knock her away. But he paused, holding his hands frozen in the air.

  “Gah!” Naia gasped. She broke off contact, staggering back and raising her bloody hands before her face. Her cheeks glistened with sweat, her hair hanging in wet ropes to her waist.

  “It worked,” she gasped, and took a great, steadying breath.

  Gil glanced down at Rylan in disbelief. His bleeding had stopped, his chest moving in a regular rhythm. His face looked peacefully asleep. Gil could hardly believe what he’d witnessed, even though dampening the Word had been his own idea.

  “Praise be to the gods,” the Sultan gasped, touching his fingers to his brow. Ashra slipped away from him and moved to the table, staring down in wonder into Rylan’s slumbering face. She reached out and touched his arm, as though she didn’t quite believe what her eyes were telling her.

  The Prime Warden used a dinner napkin to wipe the blood and perspiration off her face. She said wearily, “He will survive as long as he remains dampened.” Tossing the napkin down with a disdainful expression, she glanced back at Rylan. “He will never be able to use his Gift, however.”

  The Sultan nodded. “It is a heavy price,” he acknowledged. “But worth it.” He turned to his men lingering in the doorway. “Send for my Master of the Chamber. Have him bathed and cared for,” he ordered. “And send for my personal physician.”

  “He will not be needing a physician,” Naia snapped, sounding irritated. “What he needs is rest. And protection. His enemies have already proven themselves to be far more cunning than we ever suspected. And far more competent.”

  11

  The Kingdom of Shira

  The stairs behind the courtyard were over three centuries old, part of the skeleton of the old manor house that had once stood in the site where the Lyceum in Karikesh had been later constructed. The manor house, like the remainder of the surrounding neighborhood, had been burned to the ground in the fires that had swept through the city shortly after the Battle of Rothscard. Like the Lyceum, Karikesh itself had been built on—and out of—the bones of its predecessor. Rothscard, as it had once been called, was no more. The Unconquerable City had been conquered and razed to the ground, and from those ashes Karikesh had risen, fresh and beautiful and daunting to behold.

  The stairs beneath Gil’s feet were made of flagstone darkened by the fire that had consumed the manor house. A new iron railing now encased them, ascending from out of the courtyard’s thick canopy of trees. The air was humid, fed by a dozen or so fountains. The limbs of the trees bore leaves of orange and gold, ready to fall at the first hint of a gust.

  Arriving at a small landing at the top of the stairs, Gil reached up and knocked on a turquoise-painted door. The door opened after only a moment, and Quin peered out, looking exceptionally different without his customary black hat. Gil held up the small, leather-bound book.

  “I brought you a text,” Gil said with a smile, knowing Quin’s love-hate relationship with books.

  The Grand Master glanced down suspiciously at the book in Gil’s hand. “So you did. By all means, come in.” He stepped back, opening the door wider.

  Gil stepped into Quin’s study, which was spacious and bright, lit by windows placed high on the walls. There was an intimate ring of red-and-gold chairs clustered around a squat table that held a variety of glasses and containers of different makes and sizes. Quin had a deep love of liquor. It was rare to find him without a glass or flask in his hand. And yet, in the eight years Quin had been his mentor, Gil had never seen him intoxicated.

  “Have a seat.” Quin gestured at one of the chairs, moving around the table to claim another for himself. He sat down heavily and scooped up a glass from the table.

  “Whiskey?” he asked, lifting a lead crystal decanter.

  Gil raised his hand. “No thank you. It’s a bit early for me.”

  “Nonsense,” Quin snorted, and poured him a glass anyway. “It’s never too early. Liquor is the manure by which we fertilize our minds.”

  He hefted his glass as if ready to proffer a toast, then sat staring at Gil expectantly, until he followed suit. But instead of offering words, the Grand Master tilted his head back and let the alcohol slide down his throat, closing his eyes in pleasure.

  “Mmmmm,” he sighed, then cracked an eye open.

  Gil brought his glass up to his mouth and took a sip. The bite of the liquor burned his throat. His stomach winced in protest.

  Quin sprawled back in his chair, kicking a leg up and draping an elbow over the armrest. “I believe you’re owed a debt of gratitude,” he said to Gil. “Without you, our new friend would be decaying into compost at this moment. And if I’m right in my hunch, that would indeed be a very calamitous occurrence.”

  “What makes you say that?” Gil asked, braving another sip and grimacing as the whiskey ignited a fire in his belly. He choked down a wheeze.

  Quin didn’t appear to notice. He rubbed his fingers over the salt-and-peppered whiskers on his jaw. “As I said, it’s just a hunch. It goes something like this: why would anyone want to collar or kill the son of the greatest battlemage in history? What would they be hoping to gain?”

  Gil frowned. Quin had a point. He hadn’t thought it out that far. “Putting it like that, it sounds like someone wants to turn Rylan into a weapon. Or stop him from becoming one.”

  Quin lifted his eyebrows. “It would certainly seem that way,” he said and tossed back another swallow.

  Gil pondered the idea for a moment. “But Rylan isn’t his father,” he pointed out. “Darien Lauchlin studied under the Masters of Aerysius for twenty years. When it comes to magic, Rylan knows nothing.”

  “Including his limits,” Quin stated softly, then set his glass down. “Now let us see this gift you’ve brought me.”

  Gil handed the text to him. Quin took it a
nd started leafing through the pages, scanning them quickly without reading a word. “What am I looking for?” he asked.

  “Right here.” Gil reached out and flipped the book open to the page he’d marked previously with a slender ribbon. He tapped his finger over the ink renderings he’d discovered with Ashra. “They’re some type of artifacts,” he explained. “Look at the script.”

  Quin brought out his spectacles and slid them onto his face. He held the book closer and, squinting, rotated the text first one way and then the other. “It’s like the writing on the knife,” he observed. “But then again, it’s not.”

  “No, it’s not. But it could be a precursor,” Gil pointed out. “It says the artifacts are from the Kingdom of Shira. I’ve never heard of Shira, and I consider myself well-read.”

  Quin flipped the page, his eyes quickly scanning the text. “Shira was a great nation somewhere in ancient Zahra,” he said absently. “But that was eight thousand years ago. Zahra was erased from the map by the Well of Tears.” He flipped back again to the page with the cylinder seals.

  Setting the book down, he stood up and pulled the knife out from under the fabric of his longcoat. Gil looked up at him in surprise. He hadn’t been expecting Quin to keep the blade on his person, even though, now that he thought about it, it made sense. The weapon was much more dangerous than the other artifacts Quin usually kept around his workshop.

  Lifting the knife, the Grand Master carefully studied the inscriptions in the folded steel. “I suppose it could be the same language family,” he said at last, lowering the weapon. “But that’s still not very helpful. All it proves is that this is a very old blade. And I somehow doubt an eight-thousand-year old Shirite was running around Karikesh last night.”

  He set the knife down next to the book and settled back into his seat. He brought his hand up to scratch his cheek, his eyes sliding to the side in thought. “So, who would want to kill or control the son of a demon?” he muttered under his breath. He flicked his eyebrows. “Perhaps a better question is, who would know Rylan is the son of a demon?”

  Gil agreed; that was indeed the most important question they could be asking. According to Rylan’s adopted parents, no other person alive knew the real Rylan was buried in Amberlie Grove. So if no other person knew that information… then perhaps it wasn’t a person they should be looking for.

  Quin unstoppered the decanter. He poured himself another drink, then splashed some more into Gil’s glass, even though it was still almost full. Gil looked at the glass dismally, thinking it might appear ungrateful if he left that much untouched. Trying hard not to retch, he forced down another swallow.

  “So how are you getting along with all this?” Quin asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  The Grand Master shrugged. “You’ve been ordered to protect the son of your father’s nemesis. A most disagreeable turn of circumstance, I would think.”

  Gil offered a wry smile. “I’ve been trying to convince myself Rylan’s different. So far, I haven’t succeeded.”

  Quin scooted back in his seat and crossed an ankle over his knee. “Perhaps it would help to know that both of your fathers ended up allies by the time everything was said and done.”

  Gil frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Quin lifted his drink. “Both Kyel and Darien gave their lives to seal the Well of Tears. They died for the same cause, fighting on the same side. Never forget that.”

  Gil found those words hard to deny, for Quinlan Reis was right. Perhaps, at the end, both his own father and Rylan’s had been able to reach some kind of understanding. It was hard to imagine. But possible.

  “More whiskey?” Quin asked, lifting the bottle.

  Gil blew out a long, dispirited sigh, puffing out his cheeks. “No thanks,” he said. “I’ve had enough manure dumped on my brain for one afternoon.”

  He rose, then, and started toward the door.

  “Gil.”

  He turned and glanced back at Quin.

  The Grand Master advised softly, “Give Rylan a chance.”

  But Gil shook his head. “I don’t have to. He’s not a mage anymore,” he said, opening the door.

  Quin stopped him short with a glare and a raised finger. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking this is over,” he warned. “Because it’s not. Far from it.”

  Gil nodded once. Then he walked out the door.

  Rylan sat perfectly still, gazing down at the courtyard below his room’s large balcony. He felt dazed, as though his mind was enveloped in a thick layer of fog. He didn’t remember waking up. Or walking out onto the balcony. He thought he may have been sitting there a long time, the cool breeze fluttering the ends of the blanket that hung off him.

  He closed his eyes and cleared his mind, filling his ears with the erratic sounds of the fountain below. The trickling noise of the water was easy to focus on, just loud enough to help his mind chase away thoughts that didn’t belong there. He sat for minutes, concentrating on the fountain’s spirited music. Or maybe it was hours.

  When he opened his eyes, the sound of the fountain was still there, relentless in its melody. But he realized there was something else that was missing. Something significant. As though the life and pulse of the world had been withdrawn. Rylan stared out across the vine-draped courtyard in confusion, feeling like something of vital importance had been lost from the world.

  It was the loss of the magic field, he realized. All his life, he had been able to sense the flow of the field moving through him and hadn’t known it, even before the man in the cornfield had assaulted him. He’d never been able to touch it or do anything with it, but it had always been there with him, a comforting presence in his head that was so much a part of him, it was beneath notice. But now it was gone, as if it had never existed at all, and he ached for it. That sense had been taken from him entirely, and he yearned to have it back.

  A breeze came up, stirring his hair. The sun was warmer and far brighter than he remembered. He turned away from it—and was surprised to find a tall guard standing behind him in the doorway, blocking the entrance to his bedchamber. Rylan stood slowly and turned to face the man, who was outfitted in the same black armor he had seen on others of his kind. The man stared straight ahead, either through him or past him, and remained unmoving.

  “Excuse me,” Rylan said.

  Without a word, the man stepped away from the doorway.

  Rylan entered the bedchamber and stood looking around, blinking. There was no sign that a scuffle had ever taken place there. The rugs were pristine, and there was no blood on the tiled floor or upon the walls. The drapery cord had been replaced, the drape itself returned to its graceful swag.

  And yet, all around the room stood a ring of armored guardsmen. Looking at them, Rylan felt ill. He remembered the assault. He didn’t remember how he’d survived it. But the presence of these men made him fear the Sultan had carried the notion of protecting him much too far.

  “I’d like to be alone,” he said.

  None of the guards moved, or even acknowledged that he had spoken. Looking around the room, Rylan scanned the men’s hard faces. They weren’t going away, he realized. He would have to make the Sultan understand the guards would have to leave. If they didn’t go, he would.

  But before he went anywhere, Rylan figured he needed something more to wear than just his underclothes. He turned slowly in a circle, his eyes skimming over the bed, the two gilt chairs and matching table. Many oil lamps hung suspended from the high ceiling, and tall, golden sconces rose from the floor, holding long tapers that produced a rich, flickering light. But other than the patterned rug and the tiled hearth along the wall, the wide chamber was almost conspicuously empty: just one large, open space.

  His gaze fell on the only other piece of furniture in the room: an enameled wardrobe. Rylan walked over to it and opened the double doors. Within hung an assortment of fine garments: tunics and vests, trousers and capes. New boots of rich leather. All appeared fit for
a prince—certainly not for a farmer. Rylan raised his hand and ran his fingers over the detailed embroidery of a cuff.

  He couldn’t wear any of it. The garments in the wardrobe were all far above his station. Not only would he look like a fool, but he also didn’t want to accept anything more from the Sultan. He turned and shot a resentful glance back at the guards. The eyes of the men stared rigidly back, silent and unsympathetic. Rylan clenched his jaw in frustration and grabbed a silk shirt down from its hanger. He tugged it on, then chose the most serviceable-looking trousers he could find.

  He turned to a mirror mounted on the wall by the wardrobe. Moving closer, he found he hardly recognized himself. His untended whiskers had grown into a short beard, but his hair was washed, the blood cleaned from his face. Someone had bathed him while he’d lain unconscious. He shivered, finding the thought singularly disturbing.

  Even more unsettling was how much he resembled the man in the portrait, the demon who was his father. Disgusted, Rylan turned away from the mirror and strode toward the door. A guard stepped forward to block him.

  “You are instructed to remain here, my Lord.” The guard’s tone was just as rigid as his stance.

  Rylan felt his blood run hot. And then cold, when it occurred to him that the guard had addressed him as nobility. He would have laughed at the situation, had it not been so infuriating.

  “How long?” he demanded.

  “Until you are sent for.”

  “So, I’m a prisoner, then.” Feeling besieged, Rylan gave an exasperated sigh. At least he finally understood his role. It seemed that the Sultan was his enemy, after all. He turned away and paced back toward the center of the room, where he stood looking from implacable face to implacable face. When he couldn’t stand it any longer, he turned to the guard blocking the doorway.

  “Go tell His Majesty I demand to see him. Immediately.”