No, no, Melaine wanted to say. She fell onto all fours, staring at a dark, mottled stain on the carpet.
She groaned in concentration and squeezed her eyes shut again. She slumped onto her forearms as a hard, pea-sized lump rose from the skin of her palm. Her hands shook; she struggled to bring them together to press the tiny stone between them. She cupped it like a glowing coal, breathing magic into it as she would air to a fire.
She felt the stone kindle and grow, and she pictured the images she had seen of the Overlord, his black hair, more luxurious than her own, his sharp, cold blue eyes, his mouth’s hard line. He was the epitome of strength and dominance. Oh, if she could be like him. If he would teach her. If he would talk to her…
Melaine gave a last, wrenching cry and shoved the stone away. Her chin collided with the floor, and she rolled and saw the bleary, evil grimace of Overseer Scroupe above her head before her senses gave out.
Fire sparked and sputtered. An ember popped and burrowed its way into Melaine’s skin. She winced and rolled over until she was staring at the sloped ceiling of her rented room.
A sharp clatter made her sit up so fast that black spots mottled her vision. The horrors of the past night plunged into her heart and permeated her limbs with icy cold. She took short, sharp breaths and looked around wildly.
“Calm yourself, child,” snapped Salma. She drove an iron poker into a floating fire in the corner, spraying Melaine’s chamber pot with sparks and ash.
“How did I get back?” Melaine asked in a hoarse voice, assessing her body for damage.
“Yah think I was goin’ ta let you go down into that pit by yahself? When Jianthe told me where yah was goin’…” Melaine watched Salma’s skirts wiggle around her large backside as she set down the poker and ladled stew into wooden bowls.
“You followed me?” Melaine grumbled.
“Yah’d better be glad I did,” Salma said, turning around and plunking down a bowl in front of Melaine without ceremony. “More than one of those buggers had an eye on yah—a lot more. And let me tell yah, my cousin went down there alone once, and he didn’t come out the same.”
Melaine shuddered and shoved her bowl of stew away. The dank smells of the Hole seemed to meld with the steam.
“I knew they’d never let me in wit yah ta see his majesty, the Overseer of Shit, but I wasn’t about ta leave yah wit the likes of him, and you’d be lucky if he was the worst yah saw.”
Salma sat herself down on the pallet beside Melaine.
“So?” Salma asked. “Yah still lookin’ ta get yahself killed?”
Melaine scowled and scuffed one boot with the other. “No one’s getting killed,” she answered. “I’m going to see him.”
“Ah, I see, and then get yahself killed,” Salma said. “Well, it’s noble aspirations indeed ta wish ta be killed by the Overlord himself.” She tsked and returned her focus to her stew.
“I’d rather die at his hands than keep living here,” Melaine growled.
“Eh, now,” Salma said between gulps. “This is my place you’re insultin’.”
“You know what I mean, Salma.”
Salma set down her stew, eaten with the haste of those who are never guaranteed their next meal. She set her face into a stern frown.
“Now look here,” she said. “I’ve known yah since you were a babe, toddlin’ round Clide Street, beggin’ for sweets cause yah didn’t know any better. I’ve never had the time nor means to care for a babe, but I’ve looked after yah as best I could.”
“I take care of myself,” Melaine muttered.
“Aye, and that’s my point,” Salma said. “I spread the word that no one’s ta harm yah. I send customers your way, but that’s all I can do, yah know that.” Salma rapped the low ceiling that brushed her flyaway auburn curls on top of her head. “This place is one of the priciest in Stakeside, and believe me, I cannot afford to charge yah any less than I would anyone else. I dunnot run a charity, Mela. Yah pay for this all on your own. Yah make them lodestones like yah was born for it. Yah live a good life, child. Rough here and there, aye, but yah live a far better life than most. Yah’d be foolish ta ask for more.”
“I’d be foolish to think there was nothing better,” Melaine retorted. “Anyway, it’s done. Overseer Scroupe’s going to get me an audience with the Overlord. Things are going to change.”
“And what would yah do if yah met the Overlord?” Salma asked. Melaine stiffened at the sudden harshness in her tone. “Yah weren’t there when the Overlord took the city, but I was. I’ll never forget him ridin’ in wit his army, slaughterin’ anyone in his way. He uses dark magic, Melaine, evil magic. Black as night, blastin’ spells, his Followers raging behind ‘im. And the fire in his eyes, Mela…”
Salma stopped, her glare turning to disbelief. “And look at yah, lightin’ up at an image like that.”
She took Melaine’s hands and held on tightly enough to stop Melaine from jerking them back. “Child. Yah’re surrounded by thieves and murderers in these streets, and yah’ve never taken up wit them. The Overlord’s worse. Far worse. The things he’s done.”
Melaine pulled her hands away. Salma knew she hated people touching them.
“Thieves and murderers in Stakeside only do it to survive,” Melaine said. “The Overlord does black magic for a cause. He stamped out the Luxian Order. He vanquished the old ways. He’s made room for progress—”
“And look where that’s gotten us,” Salma said, raising her hands wide to the tiny, dark room in the middle of Stakeside. Melaine hesitated.
“He murdered Queen Adelasia in cold blood, Melaine,” Salma said. “She was so beautiful. I saw her when I was a child, paradin’ through the streets with flowers and dancin’…. And then the Overlord’s revolt happened, and the streets burned, and a dagger was sheathed in the queen’s breast in her own throne room. Yah’re tryin’ ta get into things yah know nothin’ about, Mela. The old kingdom, the Overlord’s conquest, the days of the terrible war are gone. This is all that’s left. It’s time ta stop being a child.”
“I’m as grown as you,” Melaine argued. “And I’ve already accomplished more than you ever will.”
Melaine clenched her jaw, a speck of guilt hitting her, but she refused to take back her words.
Salma shook her head.
“Child, that overseer took your stones, and yah know as well as I do, yah’ll never see him again.” She softened, giving Melaine a sympathetic look. “There’s no point in false hope, Mela.”
Salma grunted and stood, her knees popping. “Eat your stew,” she ordered. “Good horsemeat, that is. Didn’t come cheap.”
She rubbed her hands together as though warming them on a cold night. She then pushed her open palms toward the fire as if it was surrounded by a little wall that she had to topple. The fire sputtered and went out under her spell. She swept her hand in dismissal, and the smoke and ashes disappeared with a soft flurry of sepia magic.
“I’d leave the fire for yah, but it’d be at least nightfall before yah’d have the strength ta put it out. Maybe longer.” She eyed Melaine with her hands on her hips. “Yah’ll be outta work for a day, maybe two. I’ll still expect rent on time. Yah know I dunnot ‘ave a choice. The customers expect a stocked bar and hot meals.”
Melaine closed her eyes and nodded. “Yes, I know.”
“I’ll check in on yah tomorrow,” Salma offered.
“No,” said Melaine. “I’ll be fine. I always am.”
“Aye,” grunted Salma, but she wore a begrudging smile. “Yah always find a way. Resourceful, yah are, even if yah are foolish.” She shook her head again and opened the door. Stagnant, cold air seeped into the room. Salma looked out at the cloud-streaked sky and the bleak sun.
“Goin’ ta be a cold winter,” she murmured. She wrapped her ratty shawl closer around her shoulders and exited the room, closing the door behind her. Melaine pulled the extra blanket Salma had brought and burrowed into it, reveling in the quiet darkness, pushing away
the creeping visions and squirming doubts that chilled her far more than the cold.
Chapter 4
A full two days passed before Melaine was back to work. Even then, summoning the magic to make a fresh lodestone for a demanding old woman with knotted tree limbs for fingers was trying. She only got a half-pence for it, and she had to admit, anything more would have been cheating the customer.
The morning after, she arose finally feeling more like herself. Magic tingled her toes within her holey stockings and worn boots. Warmth in her chest kept out the chill of the early autumn morning as she left her room and walked down the rotted stairs.
She closed her eyes as she reached the cobblestones. If only she could keep it. Keep all of her magic to herself. Never sell it away again to the greedy hands of those whose magic was nothing compared to hers.
A luxury she could never afford.
She exhaled roughly through her nose and started walking. She despised peddling from a street corner, but she didn’t have any planned customers for the day, and rent was due soon. She had no time to waste.
The corner on Thatch Street was usually unoccupied this time of morning. The prostitutes were still in bed with their clients or sleeping off exhaustion from a full night, so there was less of a chance she would be mistaken for one, though it had happened often enough. Then again, it might be better this morning if some were already awake. She sold stones to prostitutes, or their pimps or madams, fairly often. Lodestones could give flesh-peddlers the stamina they needed to keep up with customer after customer or give their varied sex spells a boost of intensity. The best brothel in Stakeside had the most unique Insights at their disposal, numerous pleasure spells that were made all the better when they used Melaine’s magic.
She’d been invited to join a brothel on several occasions, but even in the smallest glimpses of consideration, she would shudder with thoughts of wrapping herself around a man, immersed in his filthy skin. No matter how often she saw the slip of a satisfied smile on a prostitute’s face following a sale, or how often some would claim that sex could be a better high than sniker with the right person, the idea of exposing her body to the risks of countless diseases other humans carried was repulsive. Worse than the taint of residual magic. At least she didn’t have to touch her vile customers. She’d fought tooth, nail, and spell before to keep it that way.
A rise of bitterness rose in Melaine’s throat. If it was possible for prostitutes to find pleasure in their trade from time to time, Melaine didn’t have even that small, simple luxury. Lodestones held no pleasure. Ever. They were a sickening, seeping drain. She didn’t know any other lodestone-peddlers, and the closest catharsis she could attain with flesh-peddlers wasn’t quite the same. So, despite an unspoken camaraderie between peddlers of either stone or flesh, Melaine kept her distance aside from business interactions. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was alone. That she was different, even from them.
Yet, she tore off her gloves like a ripped bodice and headed for the street corner all the same. She stuffed them in her pocket, exposing her naked hands to the cold air. She rubbed her palms together in circles and felt them push farther apart as if they were repelling magnets. She summoned deep purple wisps of magic to wreathe her hands, ready for display so people would know what she had to offer. The only wares she would consent to sell.
Her boots clicked on the cobblestones. She passed a man with a hacking cough, who folded in on himself against the wall of a carpenter’s shack. She recoiled and crossed the street. No matter how many murders in alleyways or falls on icy streets there might be, disease was the highest killer in Stakeside.
A child ran by with pounding steps, a purse in hand. Whoever’s it was clearly hadn’t realized it was missing yet. Otherwise, it was quiet on the streets. A bad sign for business.
Melaine turned a sharp corner into an alley that served as a shortcut to Thatch Street.
A wall of magic slammed into her body so hard that she tumbled backward onto the ground.
“Hey!” she shouted, wincing as she twisted her wrist to check its range of movement. “What the fuck do you—”
Two men in black leather armor rushed at Melaine. Shields.
Down here?
Melaine summoned magic to her fingertips and dove her other hand into her pocket for a vial of corrosion potion, but the guards were on her before she could do much with either defense. They each grabbed her arms, and one slapped a hand over her mouth. Her lips closed, and her tongue froze under his spell. The man released her mouth, but she couldn’t open it as he and his partner dragged her toward an ominous, black prison cart waiting around the corner of the back alley.
Melaine struggled in greater earnest, but the Shields’ bodies were stronger than her own twig frame. Her fingers crackled with magic, but the Shield on her right clapped one of her hands against the other. Her palms stuck together, extinguishing her magic. Melaine panicked as the other Shield opened the heavy black door of the cart. She didn’t know how to break a captivity spell.
The large brown workhorse at the front of the cart huffed in protest and twitched its broad flank as the men shoved Melaine into the cart and slammed the door behind her. Melaine tumbled to the floor. There were no seats. Prisoners didn’t deserve them.
She heard the Shields climb onto the front of the cart to handle the horses. One chided the horse forward, and the cart began to roll across the jarring cobblestones, crushing stray leaves and broken glass.
Melaine tried to get on her feet, but the cart turned a corner, and she fell back against the wall. Her head hit something that poked her skull, jutting out from the cart’s interior. She looked up and saw the thin outline of sunlight surrounding a small, metal rectangle. A piece of metal on the rectangle’s left side was the offender that had hurt her scalp. She reached up with both hands, her palms still clapped together, and shoved the crude handle to the right.
The metal slat shifted open, revealing a tiny window to the outside streets. Melaine braced her shoulder against the wall as the cart continued its bumpy course down the main street of Stakeside. Gawkers lined the gutter, and Melaine avoided their stares and paid attention to where the cart was headed instead. Her view was severely limited, but her heart began to beat faster as she realized where they were going.
The Stakeside wall.
It was drawing closer—that barrier that had penned her in for as long as she could remember. It was gray and dirty and covered in moss and lichen. It wasn’t even that tall, but when the cart rumbled to the small, simple gate that was always barred and guarded from the Middun side, Melaine realized that she was about to do the impossible. She was about to pass through the gate and leave Stakeside.
As a prisoner.
Her breaths quickened as she heard one of the Shields at the front of the prison cart speaking to another guard who stood on the outside of the wall. The words were muffled through the cart, but the creaking hinges of the gate were loud. The cart started moving again, and as they passed through the gate, Melaine’s black eyes widened at the sight of something she’d never seen before—the inner edge of the Stakeside wall. The wall was thinner than she had expected.
The cart rumbled past, and within seconds, they were through the gate and leaving the wall behind as though it wasn’t a momentous occasion at all.
Melaine stood on her tiptoes and strained to see as much of her surroundings as possible while the cart kept moving forward. She had only heard talk of the way of life in Middun. Now she was seeing it for herself.
The homes and shops on this side of the wall were of boxy, stacked architecture, not unlike Stakeside, but their signs were all straight and well-painted, and the laundry hanging on lines between them had no noticeable holes. The appearance of the people who stepped out of their homes to greet morning’s light matched the presentable nature of their laundry—well-mended clothing, styled hair, and clean faces and hands, albeit calloused from lives of hard work. Hard work that clearly paid them well e
nough to live such good lives.
Each person the cart passed looked into Melaine’s peering eyes with contempt.
Melaine glared and turned her eyes forward. They were approaching another wall, yet this wall’s gate was already open. Shields stood at the entrance on both sides, but they barely inspected anyone before waving people through. When the prison cart reached them, Melaine heard more muffled words, and then the guard at the gate nodded the cart through.
The buildings on the other side gradually grew even cleaner and taller, and the people wore more varied colors. Melaine even spotted a few women wearing jewelry around their necks and fingers. One man had a pocket watch, dangling from a blue vest similar to Vintor’s but much newer.
Melaine’s mind started to feel a touch of magic as she looked at the new and colorful fabrics that people wore while the prison cart continued through the upper section of Middun. The Insight she’d recently imbibed had shown her hundreds of materials, ready to be magically mended should Melaine ever have a need.
A woman passed by wearing a green silk bodice and poplin skirt with a poufy satin bustle. A matching satin ribbon tied a straw hat upon her head, a big bow fluttering underneath her chin. A little girl walked hand-in-hand with a man whom Melaine assumed was her father; the pair looked so wholesome. The girl’s pastel dress flounced with taffeta, and Melaine recognized the father’s waistcoat as a fine wool under a broadcloth suit.
The knowledge was a little overwhelming, and as happy as Melaine had been to learn the spell, she now pondered how useless something like that would be in prison.
Prison. Was that where she was going? They had now reached the third wall, and Melaine knew what lay beyond. Crossing’s Square. All of the rich gathered there, putting the lesser classes behind walls, out of sight and mind. The richest had their own private walls around large estates, of course. Melaine couldn’t even imagine what a rich person’s estate might look like. She had heard they had gardens—expansive areas filled with nothing but plants, purely for the luxury of walking through them. She couldn’t imagine having time to walk for no reason other than to look at something as trivial as flowers. Though she had heard roses were lovely.
Lodestone Page 7