by A. C. Cobble
She put a hand on the banister that ran along the wall beside the stairwell and climbed up from the rail tunnels beneath the ground. Steadying herself with the banister so she didn’t slip on the fog-slick stairs, she felt like she was crawling out of a grave. Her hand felt slimy, and when she looked at it, she saw it was black with wet soot. Cursing, she glanced at the railing and saw a gleaming trail of brass her hand had polished clean.
During the day, countless hands brushed over the banister, constantly brushing away the soot that belched from the chimneys sticking up from the tunnels. During the day, thousands of feet would stomp a clear track through the piles of ash on the ground. Now, an hour after midnight, she kicked up jet black clouds of powder with every step. The soot was like black snow clinging to her damp boots and covering the city with a constant layer of grime.
Not for the first time since arriving in Southundon, she wondered if she could return to Westundon. There was no one to stop her, but she would have to leave the archives that King Edward had opened for her. She’d have to leave the knowledge Lilibet had spent years collecting. She’d have to leave the easy comfort of life in the royal palace. She’d have to leave Duke. Though, if the infuriating man kept scheduling middle of the night meetings at far-off taverns, she might. She just might do it.
She trudged down the street, counting intersections. Three streets, take a left, walk two blocks, right, find the tavern. Evidently, Duke had something to discuss he wanted no witnesses to. Of course, in the middle of the night, nine out of ten rooms in the palace were empty. When she’d taken the message and hurried to the rail station, she hadn’t given it much thought, but not for the first time since she’d boarded the rail car, she wondered why would Duke want to meet her in such a wretched place at such an odd hour.
Isabella Child wasn’t the jealous type, was she? She didn’t seem like one to worry about his female companions, but maybe things had changed now that they were courting and the woman’s reputation was at stake. Or…
Sam paused, looking down the silent street she was supposed to turn on. If there was a tavern that way, they were doing an admirable job of hiding it. She counted again from the stairwell and muttered a curse beneath her breath. She kicked at a clump of soot fouling the avenue then started down the dark street. Someone had requested a meeting. Duke, or someone pretending to be him. There was only one way to find out for sure.
Two more turns, and she stopped.
Find the tavern, the message had said. It was a dead-end street, only one set of lights on at the end of it, a brace of lanterns hanging around a tightly shut door. The glow of more lights on the inside of the building traced the closed shutters over the windows but not a sound escaped. It was no tavern, she was sure of that.
Steeling herself, she walked into the dead-end alley, figuring that since she was there, she might as well get it over with.
She wasn’t surprised to hear the scuff of feet behind her. Turning, she saw a dark shape with a heavy cloak. A masked, white face looked at her from beneath the cowl. Two figures stepped out from around the first.
Sam drew her daggers. An ambush, obviously. But who? Why? Couldn’t a sorcerer have sent spirits to take her quietly? If they’d—
Cursing, she tucked into a roll, throwing herself in a mad scramble across the cobbles.
There was no sound, but a brush of cold behind her told her that her guess had been correct. They had sent spirits. Jumping to her feet, she spun the daggers in her hands, looking futilely into the darkness, trying to see the shades that had come from behind.
Then, they came from above.
Not shades, but creatures, slender and dark. She saw them only by the gleam of the faint light on their glossy skin.
She dodged away as one thumped down where she’d been standing. It hopped, batting thin wings to lift it higher. Swinging one of her daggers at it, Sam almost dropped the blade when her wrist smacked against a bone-hard leg.
Retreating, she was confused for a moment, but as the creature pursued her, she saw it scrambled on six legs, the clacking against the stone giving her a discomfiting warning that each of those six legs ended in a hard point. A second of the monsters came behind the first, hopping and flapping its wings, trying to work itself around its partner.
Sam couldn’t see the figures who’d originally pinned her in the street, but she doubted they would wait long to become involved.
The first of the strange, six-legged monsters hopped and feinted a sharp-tipped leg at her, and the second darted to the side, trying to circle her.
Sam lunged forward, clacking a dagger against the bone of one of the legs and then whipping her second blade against the body of the thing. The tip of the dagger bounced against hard skin, scrapping a shallow laceration, not slowing the creature.
She ducked underneath it and bumped against a leg trying to escape, the bony protrusion bruising her arm when she smacked it. Crouching, she tried to dart the other way, but another leg barred her path, and then the hard body forced her to her knees. She heard a chittering over her shoulder.
Squatting and trying to move quickly, she saw from the dim light of the two lanterns that the thing’s head was braced by two mandibles the size of her arm. They clicked as its head tried to curve underneath its body where she crouched.
It couldn’t twist to scissor her with those jaws, but she couldn’t escape out from under it, either. She was trapped by the solid legs splayed all around her like bars of a gaol.
She stabbed upward, and her dagger bounced away again.
“Hells,” she muttered and then offered a silent apology to Kalbeth.
Duck-walking beneath the chitinous skin of the creature, she sheathed her daggers and pinched her wrists. Fingers pressed against the endpoints of her tattoos, she felt a surge of burning heat and strength.
The mandibles clacked a breath from her ear.
She reached out and gripped them with both hands, twisted, and yanked the thing down. It collapsed on her, and she shoved up with her shoulder, still pulling on the mandibles. The creature flew into the air and flipped over, its six legs scrambling helplessly as she flopped it onto its back. She launched herself, sensing the second monster was coming, and spun over the head of the one she still gripped, yanking on its jaws, twisting its head around as she cartwheeled across its flailing body.
The thing’s neck turned and then snapped, brittle bone and skin shearing in half from the force of the pressure she put on it.
She landed lightly and turned to face the second of the monsters. Swinging the first creature’s decapitated head like a club, she beat away a sweeping leg from the second. Then, she dropped the head and grabbed another leg that stabbed toward her.
She ripped it from the creature’s body, her veins burning like fire was blowing through them, the spirit-bound strength coursing in her blood and muscles. Another leg came within her grasp, and she tore it away as well, the sound of it separating from the creature’s body like splintering wood.
Falling, scrambling, the monster tried to flee, but she came after, grabbing limbs and ripping them off, removing the creature’s defenses until she was close enough to punch down on its head, crushing the hard skin like it was a metal helmet, pounding the material into the thing’s brain. She let loose several more blows until the creature stilled and slumped to the wet cobblestones.
The bone of her hand, fortified by the strength of the spirits, still cracked from the force of the blows. Stifling a cry, she turned, holding her fractured hand close to her body, drawing a kris dagger with the other.
In the faint light from the lanterns, she saw the white-masked figure approaching slowly, flanked by two indistinct shapes.
“Well done,” said a woman’s voice from behind the mask. Gloved hands clapped together as the cloaked figure approached.
“Bishop Constance,” said Sam, suddenly recognizing the voice and realizing the title of Whitemask was evidently quite literal.
Constance stopped wit
hin a dozen paces of Sam. Three paces behind her, two taller men wearing black masks stopped. They looked like they could have walked straight out of a meeting of one of Enhover’s secret societies, which, Sam wondered, perhaps was the point.
“What do you want?” demanded Sam, shifting nervously, staring at her three opponents, trying to ignore the sharp ache of her broken hand. The scalding heat of the spirits still coursed through her, but already, the supernatural strength was fading. If she was to act against the three of them, she would have to do it quickly.
“What you did was sorcery according to Church law,” accused the Whitemask.
Sam shifted her stance, preparing to charge. “Aye, and what were those creatures?”
The two cloaked figures moved around Bishop Constance, taking places in front of her, their robes trailing along the cobbles, their feet dead silent. They did not raise arms or pose an overt threat, but their intention was clear.
Sam sprang forward, jabbing at the leg of the one on the left with her kris dagger and then reversing it in her hand and stabbing the blade into the abdomen of the one on the right. Her blade met nothing but cloth, and the two figures collapsed into a pile of lifeless fabric.
She gaped at the limp robes and then looked to Constance, who stood still, her white mask reflecting like the moon, the rest of her near invisible.
“Shades,” said the bishop. “Minor summonings used to intimidate more than anything. Had they attacked you, I’ve no doubt you would have prevailed. Did you break your hand on the head of the last formicidae? Their hides are quite tough.”
Sam stared at the bishop, confused. She did not reply, afraid of what would leak out of her throat.
“This was a test, girl, and I am pleased that you passed it.”
“A test?” snapped Sam, rising to her feet, nervous eyes shifting, looking for more attackers. “What game is it you play, woman?”
“The Council of Seven has gotten old,” replied Constance. “Old, and we are no longer seven. But our role is still vital. The threat of sorcery is as great today as it was one hundred years ago. We need fresh blood to sustain us, someone with the strength to do what is necessary. I flatter myself that I am the youngest amongst our leadership, but I am not young. I was grooming Raymond and Bridget to take seats at the table beside me and, in time, my own. They are both dead now. I offered a seat to Thotham, your mentor, but he is dead as well. Everyone I have tapped on the shoulder to succeed me is dead.”
Sam frowned.
“You do not have the experience we expect for a council member, but tonight, you’ve proven you have the skill. The others will object, but I know we need you. Samantha, will you join me on the Council of Seven?”
“What?” asked Sam, stunned. “Since I last saw you, I defied a direct order of yours. I-I fled the responsibilities you’d assigned me, and now you want me to sit at the council table?”
“You were not my first choice,” admitted Constance, “but there is no one else.”
“Right, you mentioned that,” said Sam sardonically. “They’re all dead.”
The Whitemask nodded but did not reply.
“Well, unfortunately, you’re too late,” said Sam. “I already have a job.”
“The duke,” guessed Constance. “He pays you well?”
Sam didn’t answer.
“Are you lovers?”
“We are not,” said Sam. She hadn’t meant Duke, but she figured there was no harm in letting the woman believe that. Sam didn’t know if King Edward meant for their arrangement to remain secret or not. When in doubt, best not to tell.
“Leave Duke Wellesley. Come take your rightful role in Romalla,” instructed Constance. “If you mean to do more with your life than collect silver, sit on the council with me, and make your mentor proud.”
“I believe you’ve misunderstood our relationship,” said Sam. “I don’t do what you say, and if you want to throw names in my face, you can forget Thotham’s. He declined your offer to join the Council, and I see no reason I should do different.”
“We do important work,” said Constance. “You can do important work, answering only to me.”
“I answer to no one,” growled Sam.
“We are all children of the Church.”
“The answer is no,” declared Sam.
She started to walk around the woman, heading out of the alley, her ears perked for any sign that Bishop Constance would try something. The woman had claimed it was a test. Failing would have meant death. Constance had put Sam’s life in grave danger while she still wanted Sam on the council. Now that Sam declined…
“The two creatures you killed are called formicidae,” said Constance, speaking to Sam’s back. “Forming them and binding them is similar to the way a sorcerer creates and controls wolfmalkin.”
Sam slowed but did not turn.
“It is more challenging than calling simple shades, but with enough preparation, it is not difficult. There are advantages to controlling creatures that have physical forms but are not direct manifestations from the underworld,” continued Constance. “Utilizing the tattoos as you do is more dangerous than tools such as the formicidae. Your flesh, your soul, is at risk when you activate those patterns. I can teach you to gather strength safely. I can teach you how creatures such as formicidae and wolfmalkin are summoned so that you may defeat them easily or utilize them when you have a need. There is so much you do not know, girl. Do not turn your back on this opportunity.”
Glancing over her shoulder, Sam stated, “You’re a sorceress.”
“I am farther down the path than you, girl, but make no mistake, we are both on it,” replied the bishop. “Would you like to see what is ahead, to have a mentor guide you down this dangerous road? All is possible within the circle of the Church.”
“I need time to think about it,” muttered Sam.
She could hear Constance shaking her head, the silk whispering at her movement, the only sound on the silent street. “A day, a week, if I give you a deadline you will say no. If I force you to decide tonight, you will say no. I see that now. It irritates me, but not enough that I will rescind my offer. It is a standing overture, Samantha. When you are ready to learn what is possible, to take the power necessary to truly do your job, then come find me in Romalla.”
Wordlessly, Sam walked out of the alley, booted feet falling quietly on the soot-covered street. Her entire adult life, she’d been dedicated to finding and destroying those on the dark path. She’d committed herself to fighting them with every breath, every beat of her heart. Over and over, she’d been told it was a difficult path to walk and even more difficult to turn from. She’d been told it was seductive, that it would catch her and draw her along. She’d believed it. She had thought she understood, but she’d had no idea.
Shivering in the cool spring air, holding her broken hand close to her chest, she walked the dark, silent streets of Southundon.
The Cartographer XVI
“Cardinal Langdon’s interference and now Bishop Constance is in town?” muttered Oliver. “I don’t like it.”
“Bishop Yates was a sorcerer,” remarked his brother John. “Constance is the leader of the Council of Seven, yes? Shouldn’t we expect her to be here? Her role in the Church is to hunt down sorcerers, and I can’t imagine a much larger failure in the organization than one of their own being a practitioner. Bishop Yates, spirits, he was on track to become cardinal! If she wasn’t here, wasn’t poking around trying to save face, I imagine the prelate would have her scrubbing pots in the kitchen, or whatever it is the Church does with failed priests.”
Sighing, Oliver forced his hand down from his hair where he’d been absentmindedly touching the tie in the back.
“What are you so worried about Bishop Constance for, anyway?” asked John.
“I don’t like the politics the Church is playing,” responded Oliver.
“The Wellesleys have never been a religious family,” reminded John. “We’ve tolerated the presen
ce of the Church and her priests because they give the commons something to think about other than us, but tolerating is the extent of what we’ve done. The Church has never defied us openly, but they’ve never been comfortable with our presence on Enhover’s throne, either. As the empire has expanded, so has their trepidation of the Crown. It’s natural. There is only so much power to go around. We’d be well-advised to keep an eye on the Church’s machinations, but it’s no different than any other time in our history. You’d know that, Oliver, if you had paid attention to our tutors.”
Oliver shrugged. “That may be true.”
“Just don’t say anything in front of Franklin,” warned John. “He’s in their thrall, you know? Philip and I have been watching, and we could use your attention on him as well, now that you’ve decided to settle in and become a productive member of the family.”
Oliver rolled his eyes but admitted his brother had a point. Langdon, Constance, and Franklin. The Church was reaching into Enhover, curling its fingers around anything it could grasp, but perhaps it wasn’t so different from what any powerful organization would attempt to do.
“Come on, brother,” said John, raising his wooden practice sword and pulling down the meshed mask that guarded his face. “You bested me the last two bouts, but I was just warming up.”
Grinning, Oliver pulled on his own protective gear and launched a wild attack at John.
His brother parried then riposted, and Oliver fell into the rhythm of fencing, letting his brother push him back before he caught John’s sword on the side of his own and let it slide past, leaving John open to counterattack.
Cursing, John rubbed his arm where Oliver’s wooden blade had thudded into his muscle. “Hells, Oliver, you’ve gotten a lot better than I recall.”
“There were a few tutors I paid attention to,” said Oliver with a laugh. Then he raised his practice sword again. “After I’m done bruising you, I’ll show you the best way to recover — a trip to the baths, a rub down from the staff there, and a cold ale. You’ll be feeling spritely by dinner.”