SMOKE AND BLADES

by D Elias Jenkins

  Even the Vigilante seemed a little surprised by this.

  “Councilor Crawl is the mage that sent Izzy and I to Zalenberg to retrieve the Dark in the first place. You think he was just after it all along?”

  Maeve slowly took out a rillo and lit it. She left them on the table in case Gaunt wanted one but it felt somehow wrong to offer.

  “Perhaps he knew of your and Izzy’s reputation? I looked at your files, you both certainly stopped plenty of plots against the city. Same reason he made sure to get me outside the city walls before he tried to have me killed.”

  Gaunt paced around his island and nodded.

  “You really think one of the magi of Candlehill is working with Jonas Reach? This is a city dedicated to sorcery, Inspector. The magi have protected it for centuries.”

  Maeve lit her rillo and nervously smoked, with one eye on the vengeful ghost. It had not stopped looking at her.

  “Crawl has been secretly studying demonology.”

  Gaunt’s face fell into a mask of cold anger.

  “Reach has the spirit of a demon within him. He is working with Crawl.”

  Maeve nodded.

  “He has been corrupted. I’m not sure he is even sane. Demonic magic ravages the user, warps the mind. The things he has been in communion with may have planted ideas in his mind. Ideas he may not even be aware of.”

  Gaunt was already buttoning up his shirt and reaching for his weapons belt.

  “You think if his mind is warped he might be supporting Reach’s plan? He would destroy the entire city he has sworn to govern and protect?”

  Maeve also stood and stubbed out her rillo.

  “Some magicks are not to be messed with. They…change a person. Make them something different from who and what they were before. “

  Gaunt paused for a moment in self-awareness. He glanced over at the Wraith and then cocked his head at Maeve.

  “Point taken Inspector Scurlock. I have heard rumor that some of the higher towers on Candlehill have secret stairways that lead down into the warrens. To the deepest areas where the magick is strongest. Places inaccessible from here.”

  Maeve took a deep breath as she realized how far from her old life she had really stepped. She was here in the warrens beneath the city, making plans with one of the most wanted murderers in Free Reign. She had to admit, she felt excited.

  “So our plan is to break in to an impregnable tower, to question one of the most powerful sorcerers in Free Reign, who may be in cahoots with a master criminal intent on bringing the city to the ground.”

  Gaunt nodded as he picked up his bird mask.

  “Yes. Are you happy to continue?”

  Maeve glanced across at the Wraith.

  “If…your wife…has no objections. I will do whatever I can to help.”

  Gaunt placed the mask over his face and it instantly changed him into the terrifying demon hunter she had hunted throughout the city.

  “Out with the law?”

  Maeve took a deep breath and nodded.

  “Whatever it takes.”

  33

  Councilor Michael Crawl shuffled around his study. He was disheveled in his velvet robe and his usually perfectly greased back hair stuck up at all angles. He approached his desk and rearranged the many books and papers scattered upon it but could not settle on anything.

  In desperation he poured himself a large measure of orange brandy and downed it in three big gulps.

  The burning liquid set off a coughing fit and in frustration he threw the crystal glass across the room. It shattered against the stone wall and spilled a thousand crystalline shards across his thick carpet. Almost immediately his little clockwork golem arrived on whirring legs and began to sweep up the mess. Crawl walked frantically over to his window and looked down on the glittering metropolis of Free Reign, nearly a mile below his high tower. He scratched his face and pulled on his grey hair in twitchy, spasmodic movements.

  “Change is violent, it is destructive. But it is a natural process.”

  Crawl turned to address the mute, semi-sentient golem, who completely ignored him and focused on the important task of keeping his study clean. Gaunt shrugged and opened the window to allow a cold blast of air to chill his face. He shouted out the window to no one.

  “Judgement comes to you, Free Reign!”

  He spun and slid slowly down the wall, sobbing and laughing in equal measure. He should have known better. No mage in the history of magic had ever immersed himself in the art of demonology and come away with his mind in one piece. In his hubris Crawl thought his colleagues cowardly and unadventurous. Unwilling to push the boundaries of knowledge by taking risks. After all, he concluded, magic was intrinsically a pioneering journey into the unknown. The city that spread out beneath his window was created by people who were unafraid to walk towards the mysterious noise in the forest. People that addressed their gods as equals.

  “How many times has the city burned or fallen over the millennia? Only to rise again better and wiser like a phoenix. It will happen again. But this time the rebuilding will be overseen by a true architect. Is that right, master?”

  Crawl glanced wildly around the study as if waiting for the ether to answer him.

  “Oh divine father, have I not followed your instructions to the letter? What disciple was ever so devout as I? And you greet me with silence. Am I to be cast aside at our very hour of triumph?”

  Crawl waited with sobbing breath for an answer that never came.

  “Is that it? Am I alone?”

  A voice came from the shadows.

  “Unfortunately for you, no.”

  Crawl got up on his knees with his hands clasped. He called out to the shadows of the tower.

  “What would you have me do?”

  The Vigilante’s green eyes activated in the shadows and councilor Crawl threw himself with a shriek against the stone wall. The Vigilante’s masked voice was a dry and harsh as a desert.

  “Well for a start you can get up off your knees. That’s no position for a man to die in.”

  Crawl was fighting between his all too human terror and his natural mage’s curiosity. He was shaking but he craned his neck forward to get a better view of the demon hunter that had been nailing criminals to walls for weeks. Crawls eyes scanned the dark around him, seeking to find the thaumaturgical rarity his connoisseur’s eye sought.

  “Where is it? Is it with you?”

  The Vigilante cocked his bird head and a shape materialized in the shadows beside him. It darted forward and Crawl found himself pinned to the wall by razor sharp claws. He squealed like a child and the front of his robe coloured dark.

  “It is a she, and her name is Izabella. You might recall that name from a year ago when you sent her and her husband on a mission that would end in their deaths.”

  Crawl stared past the horrific apparition to the masked man. His shoulders sagged and he began to weep.

  “I know who you are. I’ve known since you first turned up in the city.”

  The Vigilante walked forward and crouched down in front of Crawl. He drew a Grimjade dagger and ran his black gloved hand across the blade.

  “So you’ve been following my work?”

  Crawl nodded. The Vigilante ran the side of the blade down Crawl’s cheek.

  “Then you know exactly what I’m capable of. You know what I do to people I consider an illness in the city. I cure them. I give them their medicine. And I have a bitter pill for you, councilor Michael Crawl.”

  Crawl held up his hands but the Wraith opened her mouth as if to bite and he lowered them.

  “I am no common criminal, Gaunt. I do not deserve the punishment of those alley dwellers down below.”

  The Vigilante pointed to the window with the blade.

  “I hear that you’re no stranger to those alleys these days councilor. You wanted to see what it was like to walk amongst the filth and the danger. To know what it felt like to kill. Another experiment of yours.”


  Crawl shook his head violently and sweat lashed from his cheeks.

  “No! I was not myself. An evil spirit took me, entered me and guided my hand. I am a victim, Gaunt, as much as you.”

  The Vigilante stared at him impassively with his round green eyes. The Grimjade blade stayed pressed against Crawl’s cheek.

  “You knew exactly what you were doing, wizard. You were hungry for power no matter what the source. And arrogant enough to think you could control it. But I know something you wouldn’t admit to anybody else, because I feel it myself.”

  Crawl was weeping and his hands were shaking but he held the Vigilante’s gaze.

  “What is that?”

  “You enjoyed killing. It was cathartic and fulfilling and beautiful. As it is for me.”

  Crawl shook his head and then let it thump back onto the marble.

  “Yes…yes…yes you fucking aberration…I loved every moment.”

  The Wraith placed a talon a millimeter from Crawl’s eyeball and the Vigilante held it open.

  “Well, now that we’re in a place of honesty, you’re going to tell me exactly where Jonas Reach is, and what he plans to do with that weapon.”

  Crawl shook his head.

  “He was here, only an hour ago. You are too late he has already left with the Dark.”

  He was here? How did he get out?”

  Crawl started to shake his head but the Wraith put the talon ever closer to his eyeball.

  “Over there, the door next to my bookshelf. It will lead you directly to the Elemental Forges”

  “The Dark. What is it? What exactly does it do really?”

  Crawl gave a weak shrug as if the answer was obvious.

  “It is literally nothing. A conduit to the outer darkness where my master was born. Reach plans to take it to the Elemental Forges. He wants to place it next to the First Spark and activate it.”

  The Vigilante sat back a little, evaluating this. Then he spoke over his shoulder into the shadows of the room.

  “So what do you reckon would happen if someone put, say, an endless vacuum of nothingness next to a boundless source of thaumaturgy?”

  Maeve stepped forward with her revolver drawn by her side. She looked down at Crawl with disdain.

  “It’s a siphon. Jonas wants to drain the power from the Spark. Snuff it out.”

  Crawl began to laugh and then choked on his own spittle.

  “Well I’m surprised you only got a respectable B in thaumaturgy, Inspector. You’re not so dumb.”

  Maeve gave him a sarcastic smile.

  “That’s why no empath can sense any thaumaturgy from the orb. Same reason they couldn’t find you Gaunt. The dark doesn’t emanate magic. It doesn’t contain anything at all.”

  Crawl giggled.

  “She’s right. It contains nothing. A void. Formless and pure. And infinite. Save for my Ebon King.”

  Maeve looked own and kicked him sharply in the leg. Crawl winced and was silent.

  “Shut up, giggles.”

  The Vigilante took off his mask and John Gaunt looked into the insane face of the mage.

  “A void big enough to contain all the power of the First Spark?”

  Crawl grinned cruelly.

  “It could contain a million sparks. And both your souls.”

  Crawl winced theatrically and pointed a crooked finger at Maeve.

  “Sorry, only yours.”

  Maeve shook her head in disbelief.

  “You’re a mage. You’ve been brought up to protect Free Reign. This is your home too. Why would you want to see it in ruins?”

  Crawl slumped back down against the wall. He was like a man slowly deflating. His cheeks had become hollow and his face haggard. He shook his head in confusion for a moment and then grinned and cocked a thumb over to Gaunt.

  “Hollow man here understands the principle, doesn’t he? Create a void somewhere, say, within a man where his soul usually resides, and that sorcerous power just can’t wait to pour in and fill up the void. Thaumaturgy abhors a vacuum.”

  Gaunt squatted down on his haunches and leaned in towards the mage like a hungry wolf. Crawl’s bloodshot eyes widened and he pressed himself against the wall with a wince.

  “If I didn’t remember to blink and consciously hold her back, my wife would slowly peel your face off. I don’t think I could hold stop her. I can feel her sharpening her knives in my brain like pangs of fear, swish swish. She’s looking forward to spending time with you and no mistake.”

  Maeve held out her hand and a set of enchanted shackles were hanging from her finger.

  “Easy there Spooky. The good councilor is currently under arrest for conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism. He’ll stand in a court of law and answer for that.”

  Crawl stared at Maeve as if she were a child. He burst into a sudden peel of laughter and broadcast spittle across the room.

  “Arrested! Inspector, I helped write half of the law you live by. My allies are intelligences as old and heartless as mountains. I work daily in spheres you couldn’t possibly get your plod’s mind around. There’s nothing I haven’t seen. You plan to parade me before your sergeant like a bar room thug you’ve apprehended?”

  Maeve crouched down before him and cocked her head.

  “For all your vision, there’s one thing you didn’t manage to see, Crawl, that I can plainly see from here.”

  Crawl snorted at her.

  “And what is that, warden?”

  Maeve dangled the handcuffs in front of him.

  “That you are as crazy as swanshit. Now either these cuffs go on compliantly, or I snap your fucking wrists like breadsticks doing it. And before you answer, bear in mind that out of me and spooky here, I’m the good warden.”

  Crawl stared bug eyed at the manacles. He spoke to Maeve in a freezing whisper.

  “You disgusting insect. How dare you lay a finger on me.”

  Maeve twisted his wrist and snapped on the first bracelet.

  “You live all the way up here, councilor, but you’re not above the law.”

  Gaunt stood and watched as the mage writhed feverishly on the lush red carpet. Once the handcuffs were applied the madness had overtaken him and he had fallen into a stupor. Gaunt turned to Maeve and pointed at the open door in Crawl’s study.

  “One last trip down into the dark with me, Inspector?”

  Instead of the dreaded sight of a set of stone steps disappearing a mile down into the gloom, it was a well maintained platform that lowered them smoothly the height of the tower and below. They could feel the air change subtly when they dipped below ground level and into the hill itself.

  Within ten minutes the platform slowly ground to a halt and the grate rattled open, revealing a long red brick passageway.

  Gaunt gestured for Maeve to go first and they moved out into the cold stagnant air.

  Maeve and Gaunt moved carefully along the tunnel. It was lit sporadically with moonglobes and phosphorescent moss. Maeve ran a finger along the ancient brickwork.

  “We’re deep Gaunt. These are old tunnels.”

  Gaunt scanned the scored and ancient stone.

  “Could be the earliest. The first warrens were dug under Candlehill to give the old wizards access to the deepest springs. Reach would never be able to get into the forges any other way.”

  Maeve still found it hard to comprehend that one of the city’s council could have been corrupted in such a way. Maeve had always believed in the system, the establishment and rule of law. Beyond the walls and out in the wilds she knew there had always been men like Jonas Reach. Dusty prophets whose mountain gods spoke to them in portents and signs and always with commands of destruction. She thought that the barbarians had been kept outside the city walls and it pained her to think of such a mind looking down on them from his ivory tower. She glanced at Gaunt’s pale scarred face.

  “This Ebon King that’s been eating away at Crawl’s mind. You think it’s the same entity that Reach said was whispering to him in th
e desert?”

  Gaunt nodded.

  “I’d bet on it. Except Reach is the type that would willingly court it. And it wouldn’t need to drive him insane because he’s already barking at the moons.”

  Maeve shook her head.

  “He’d willingly let this demonic entity enter his body just to give him the power to destroy the civilized world? Where does that kind of hate come from?”

  Gaunt snorted and quickened his footsteps in the damp tunnel.

  “You want to write a book about him or you want to kill him?”

  Maeve answered in a sharper tone than she intended.

  “I want to protect civilization from people like him, who want to drag us back into war and savagery we’ve spent the last thousand years crawling our way out of.”

  Gaunt offered her a sardonic grin.

  “But you want to do it nicely.”

  “I want to adhere to the law, Gaunt.”

  Gaunt turned to face her incredulously.

  “You’ve just broken into one of the sacred towers of Candlehill, now you’re sneaking about in the dark with a wanted fugitive and murderer because there’s no one else you can trust. World isn’t black and white like you want it to be, warden. Seems like you’re finally realizing how far you have to go to stop men like Reach. He has no rules or limits, neither can we.”

  Up ahead they could see a light so bright it could be mistaken for daylight but they both instinctively knew that it wasn’t. A low thrum of power reverberated through the walls to meet them. Maeve cast a sidelong glance at the pale soulless man beside her.

  “With respect, Mr. Gaunt, you broke into the underworld to retrieve the soul of your dead wife. I think you may have boundary issues.”

  “Fair.”

  Gaunt drew both pistol and shortsword and gritted his teeth. He could sense the end, and for better or for worse, the warden was up to her neck in it with him.

  They stepped out of the tunnel onto a high platform and immediately had to

  shield their eyes from the glaring light.