Magic Underground: The Complete Collection (Magic Underground Anthologies Book 4)

by Melinda Kucsera

  Thirteen, let it stop. These people don’t deserve to die. Not this way.

  A rumble of thunder overhead made her flinch, and the clouds opened up to let loose fat rain drops. It wasn’t long before the inn’s customers joined her, each one wide-eyed and soon-to-be soaked as the night sky poured forth its fury.

  “What was that?” one man asked.

  Another shook his head. “Never seen nothin’ like it. Think the rain’ll stop it?”

  They turned her way, waiting for answers, but she had none to give.

  Sitting on the rock, alone and soaked to the skin, was where Bredych found Shara almost two hours later. The rain was little more than a sprinkle, and all that remained of the Katalhum Inn stood in a foamy swamp. Nothing but the back wall remained as even the collapsed roof had mostly succumbed to the magical ooze.

  When her brother sat beside her, he stared at the inn with eyes too wide and his mouth slack. “What happened?” he whispered.

  “Magic.” Shara shivered. Bredych removed his cloak and draped it about her shoulders. Her cheek had long since ceased bleeding, but when he touched it, she flinched. “I’m fine. It’s only a cut.”

  “The Tribor?”

  “Dead.”

  “We should get you somewhere warm. Maybe there’s room at Ebitai.”

  She laughed, a harsh sound that echoed across the silent square. “Ya think they’ll welcome us after the Katalhum? We’re lucky they ain’t run us outta town yet.”

  It was then that her brother noticed the odd looks and distance the townsfolk gave them. “Who dared use magic? Was it the Tribor?”

  Shara nodded. “Never seen anythin’ like it.”

  Bredych pointed at the Katalhum’s barn. “How is it still standing?”

  “It’s detached. The rain and the dirt kept it safe. Or so I assume.”

  He stood and pulled her to her feet. The two cloaks parted for a moment, exposing her bare feet and legs. Her brother’s cheeks flushed as he silently led her to the barn. Once inside, he handed her a lit candle and pointed toward an empty stall. “Settle in while I go find you some…clothes.”

  Dusty though it was, the straw was clean and warm. She hung the candle’s lantern on a wall hook and settled gratefully into the straw. Her mind whirled as she thought about the way the foam had devoured everything. Metals had slowed it down, but even the inn’s iron stove had succumbed to it in the end. The Order’s libraries held all manner of knowledge on the ancient forbidden magics, but nothing like this. As her mind struggled to make sense of the day, her eyes grew heavy in the barn’s warmth.

  She must’ve dozed.

  When she opened her eyes next, a pile of mismatched clothing sat beside her, as well as a loaf of bread and a square of cheese. Momentarily alone, Shara took the time to pull on a too large, brown tunic that stretched to her knees, and a pair of gray leggings. A simple belt helped the tunic feel less frumpy, but nothing could help the diminutive green slippers with embroidered flowers across the top. They look like somethin’ our gran would’ve worn. Bredych must’ve nicked these clothes from someone’s dryin’ lines. Straw crunched beneath someone’s feet—two feet, not four—and Shara leaned against the stall wall, dagger in hand.

  “It’s me,” a low voice called out, and Shara relaxed. Her brother opened the stall door and nodded as he spotted her putting away her dagger. “Good to be alert. The townsfolk are none-too-happy with you at the moment. I don’t think any of them will come at us—they’re too afraid of you—but just in case, keep your weapons…weapon handy.”

  She winced at the reminder. All her throwing knives and hidden daggers were nothing more than ooze now. Amaskans traveled light, but the weapons’ loss stung. They both sat in the straw eating bread and cheese until neither of them could remain silent any longer.

  “Tell me what happened. From the beginning,” he said.

  The story tumbled out of her, from the blacksmith’s role and the evidence, to the seduction and the magic that followed. When she stopped talking, her brother sat in the straw, his knees drawn up beneath his chin.

  “I’ve heard of such things, but only once,” he said, and she gasped. “The Order doesn’t take members from Shad, no matter how much they swear to Anur, God of Justice. There are exceptions—Eli being one, and he didn’t work out—but there are very few. The Kingdom of Shad is rotten down to its core, and its people would do anything to ensure the Order lives only in the past. But once, when I was just a trainee, there was a man with skin the color of coal who came seeking shelter. He stumbled upon our Order with tales of being chased by men baring marks of a trio of lines.”

  “Tribor,” she whispered.

  “Yes, Tribor. This man had come from the islands far across the ocean looking for trade. Little did he know of Shadian treachery, and when he stumbled upon the Tribor, they burned down an entire village to flush him out. It’s called adenneith and grows only in the lone mountain range of Shad. Up in the highest reaches, where there is little air and even the mountain goats avoid it.”

  “Adenneith means ‘touched by the gods’.”

  He nodded. “I’ve never seen its use, but he spoke of it to the Grand Master. Many didn’t believe him, while others had nightmares for weeks over what he described. Who could imagine a plant with such wayward magic? I would have never thought it possible for something to burn through flesh, wood, and metal alike.”

  Shara stared at the straw. She’d seen many disturbing horrors as an Amaskan, some of them a result of her pursuit for Justice, but nothing like this.

  “Perhaps we should discuss this later,” said Bredych as he patted her hands. “Are you able to sleep?”

  When she nodded, he pulled down a horse blanket from the stall’s half-wall and tossed it to her. “We’ll leave town in the morning. We need to get back to the Order as soon as possible.”

  She nodded and stretched out in the straw. The ooze crawled through her memories for a moment longer before exhaustion took over and she slept.

  Shrill screams chased her in her dreams, and Shara fought them as she stumbled through one dark room after another. No matter where she fled, the smell of burnt flesh followed her. Something touched her shoulders, and her cries joined the others, until she saw it was hands and not ooze that touched her. She followed those hands up to their face, and found Bredych standing behind her.

  He shouted something incomprehensible amidst all the screaming, and when she shrugged, he grabbed her shoulders and shook her hard enough she thought her neck would snap.

  At the edge of her thoughts, something tickled her mind. She tried to push her brother away, but he refused to release her. He shouted at her again, and the world grew hazy. The smell of smoke drifted past her nose, and someone outside her immediate circle coughed. It sounded like her, but she hadn’t done it.

  Or had she?

  Shara’s eyes snapped open to find Bredych crouching over her, his face a mix of frustration and panic. “—ke up!” he shouted.

  The screaming reached her then as did the smoke, and she sat up so fast she nearly slammed her forehead into Bredych’s. “Wh-what’s happenin’?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Everyone began screaming, and I woke up to you screaming along with them. I thought maybe you could tell me.”

  Tense muscles held him in place, but he looked ready to bolt, and Shara grabbed his hand. “I was dreamin’ of magic. I doubt it followed me into the real world.”

  A door slammed open, and they froze for a moment before they both rushed out of the stall. One of the stablehands stumbled into the barn, his arms covered in foam. He made it two screaming steps before he stumbled and fell.

  “We need to leave. Now,” said Bredych as he tugged her toward the barn’s rear door.

  She followed him outside where the screaming grew louder. Most of it reached them from inside homes and businesses, but some people had managed to make it outside before they collapsed into writhing piles that swiftly grew silent.

>   “How can we help them?” asked Shara.

  Her brother shook his head. “We can’t. There’s nothing we can do for them now but leave.”

  She stood still as both fire and ooze spread across Lachail.

  From ten feet ahead, he shouted, “Come on, Shara, we need to go!”

  “Ya would abandon these people? We’re the reason this is happenin’! If we don’t stop it, it’ll destroy the entire town and everyone with it!”

  “And if we don’t leave and report to the Order, it might spread there, too. How do we know this will stop at the town’s edge?”

  A young girl of ten tumbled out of a nearby building, her hands covered in bloody foam. Bredych backed away, his face pale as he stared at her. “Help me!” she shrieked as a bit of her skin dropped to the dirt. It sizzled but ceased spreading upon contact with the soil.

  “Thirteen, be merciful,” Shara whispered.

  When Bredych continued backing away, the little girl turned toward a lean-to shelter butted up against her family’s home. “Stop!” she cried out, but the girl continued inside.

  Maybe if I can get her to roll in dirt, it’ll stop the spread? Shara followed the girl to see that she’d grabbed hold of the family dairy cow.

  “Touch the dirt. Roll in it!”

  The girl stumbled in Shara’s direction and knocked over a milk pail, turning the dirt in front of her into a muddy mess. Pain sent the girl pitching forward where she landed on hands and knees in the milk. Her cries became whimpers, and she glanced up at Shara in shock. The girl’s eyes rolled back as she passed out.

  “Don’t touch her!” Bredych called from the door.

  Shara stared at the girl’s hands as blood seeped out, but it was only blood. No foamy concoction spread across her at all. Behind her, the cow let loose a painful cry, and she scooped up spilled milk and splashed it on the cow’s back legs. It took two more tries to coat the foam without touching it, but it worked. The milk stopped the foam from spreading.

  Armed with that knowledge, she bent over the girl and listened. Her breaths were shallow but present, and Shara ripped the bottom quarter of her cloak, using it to wrap around the girls mutilated hands. “Stop touching her! Are you mad?” her brother called, but she ignored him as she bandaged the girl as best she could.

  “The milk seems to neutralize it. Maybe the foam’s acidic in nature. Quick—we need to tell the townsfolk!” Bredych stared at the girl, then glanced at Shara as she held up her hands. “See? No foam. I’m fine. Help me tell the others.”

  Bredych followed her from the lean-to and out into the town, where multiple buildings lay destroyed.

  Dammit, there ain’t enough milk in town, let alone three towns for the destruction takin’ place. “See if ya can find any horses that ain’t harmed or dead, then spread the word on how to stop this poison.”

  Shara ducked back into the lean-to and picked up the girl. A huddle of healthy people stood at the town’s center, and she carried the child to them. “She’s injured, but she won’t hurt ya.”

  The group backed away from her, and Shara shook her head. “Dammit, milk’s the answer. It stops this magical ooze. Girl knocked over a bucket and fell in it. Her hands are injured, but she’s otherwise fine. She won’t devour ya. I need to help the others, but you’ll have to take her.”

  Juidre stepped forward from the group and held out his arms. “Give her to me.”

  She handed off the girl to the innkeeper with a nod and ran to the closest house. “Anyone here? Anyone still alive?” she called. When no one answered, she moved on to the next house and the next.

  At the fourth house, she found two children huddled near a puddle of ooze and what could only be the remains of a family member. “Can ya jump?” she asked, and the little boy holding the candle nodded.

  “Come to me then. I’ll catch ya. Just don’t touch it.”

  “M’sister. Her first.”

  The girl couldn’t have been more than four as she stared up with moon-sized eyes. When Shara held out her hands, the girl shook her head. “Will eat me.”

  “I won’t let it.”

  When the child refused a second time, Shara tiptoed as close to the ooze as she dared, then stretched forward until her hand rested against the counter. She encircled the child’s waist with her free arm, then shoved away from the ooze and the counter. Her muscles screamed from the weight’s odd positioning as she fought to fall backward rather than forward. Once safely across the ooze, she backpedaled until her momentum slowed. The moment she set the girl down, the boy set the candle on the counter and leapt over the puddle with ease.

  Shara ushered them both toward the center of town and continued her search. Those that hadn’t run afoul of the foam were already huddled at the town’s center, with the exception of the two kids. Most of the town’s guards, if they could be called that, had fled when the chaos began, though a few lay dead near the Katalhum Inn, where they’d gotten too close to what remained.

  More dead lay near the small lake at the town’s northern edge, and she shuddered. They drank the stuff. Thirteen help us, it’s in the water. Of course it is—the runoff from the rain poisoned the lake.

  She pressed two fingers against her forehead and closed her eyes.

  Itovah be merciful in their crossin’, as ya weren’t in their passin’.

  By the time she reached the center of town again, Bredych had rounded up five horses, a mule, and one cow. “We need to leave town before we’re trapped here,” she said.

  “Trapped here? What do you mean?” Several townsfolks muttered questions in her direction in voices that shook with exhaustion and fear.

  “Dirt stops the stuff. So does milk. But yer town’s in a circle. When it stops, there’ll be a circle of ooze around us. We’ll be trapped inside, so we need to leave,” she said.

  “Where will we go? It’s nighttime! The next town isn’t for another ten miles.” This from a young woman holding a squirming toddler.

  “Ya just need to get outside town. Ya can stay there ’til daylight and walk once the sun comes up. Someone can take the wounded girl on a horse, and those that need can ride as well.” Shara didn’t wait for them to agree but set forth toward the town entrance. Whoever or whatever had started the real fire, had done so far enough away that it hadn’t reached the entrance, nor had the ooze. At first, the cow didn’t want to leave town, but a few pieces of grass tempted her to follow the line of people and horses.

  Several cried out as a rumble shook them, and Shara turned to see that Ebitai Inn had collapsed. “Keep walkin’,” she ordered.

  Bredych leaned close to her ear. “We can’t stay with them,” he whispered.

  She nodded but kept walking until they reached a nice canopy of trees. “It’s safe to stop here.”

  Blacksmith Bahr began gathering wood, and a few women gathered pine needles and leaves for makeshift beds. Before long, the townsfolks had settled into a temporary camp, complete with a fire pit.

  “Ya should be safe enough here ’til mornin’, but take turns keepin’ watch ’til the sun comes up. Still wild creatures about,” she said.

  “And don’t drink the water from the lake. The poison must have run off from the inn to the lake last night, and well, you know the rest. You’ll have to make due until you reach a different water source. Make sure you label that lake as poison when you can,” said Bredych.

  Bahr trudged up to them both, a frown on his face. He pointedly ignored Shara, though his cheeks flushed as he approached. “What about you two? You talk as if you’re leaving.”

  “We are. We have responsibilities elsewhere.”

  The blacksmith shook his head at Bredych’s words. “So ya just roll into town, and a day later, some evil…thing destroys the Katalhum Inn. Now the rest of town’s gone, the water’s poison, and you’ve got ‘responsibilities elsewhere,’ have ya?”

  Shara stepped between the two men and touched Bahr’s arm. “Ya don’t want to do this. Let us go.”

/>   He glanced down at her bald head, and she turned until the circular tattoo on her jaw, almost tucked under her earlobe, was visible in his candle-light. When his gaze caught it, he set his lips in a grim line. “Amaskans are Justice seekers, no? So much for that,” he muttered. When someone nearby raised a fuss, he rushed over to whisper something in their ear.

  A hush spread quickly through the makeshift camp as Bredych and Shara left. Bahr ain’t wrong. We should be stayin’ to help set this right. But Bredych ain’t wrong either. We need to get back to the Order. This magic’s a threat to us all. She turned several times to look back over her shoulder. No one wished them safe travels, and no one dared wish them a happy return.

  They walked a good two miles before stopping, putting plenty of distance between the two temporary camps. Bredych carried his flint on him, which he used with a dagger to spark their fire. Most of his supplies were gone like Shara’s, having been in their room when the Katalhum Inn was devoured.

  He was silent for a time as they watched the wood pop in the night air, and then he opened his mouth and closed it again. This happened twice more before Shara, irritated and tired, flicked his shoulder. “Speak yer peace.”

  “What?”

  “Ya want to say somethin’. I can see it worrin’ at ya, so say it already.”

  Bredych’s brows furrowed together. “Do you ever wonder if you’re cursed?”

  Shara could’ve laughed but in truth, the thought had occurred to her. First Tovias and now Lachail. “I’ve wondered, but accidents happen. Look at how many jobs I’ve had ’tween Tovias and Lachail. Not every job’s gone wayward. In fact, most haven’t.”

  “Yes, but you have to admit, Lachail was a disaster. If you hadn’t--well, there would still be a town called Lachail.”

  She glared at her brother. “If I hadn’t? I didn’t pick this job, so don’t put this on me and me alone. This could’ve happened to anyone.”

  “But it didn’t, sister. It happened to you.”