Soulbinder

by Sebastien de Castell

  “Language? What does it say?”

  He smiled. “That, my friend, is what I’ve spent my life trying to figure out. Best I can guess, when we become infected with the shadowblack, the specific rules of whichever esoteric realm our markings are bound to compose a unique pattern of lines on our skin. Those markings define our particular connection to shadow.”

  “So that’s what gives some people their abilities?”

  “Near as I can tell, what looks to us like just a bunch of black scribbles is actually a kind of … Well, to a Jan’Tep like you, it might seem like a spell. To me, though, it’s a kind of poetry.”

  Poems. Just what I needed.

  “And what does mine say?” I nevertheless asked. I was sitting up straighter in my chair. For all that I didn’t trust the abbot—or anyone else here—the possibility that my shadowblack might be something more than a curse was too compelling a proposition to resist.

  “That’s what’s so strange,” he replied. “What your grandmother did to you—it’s not supposed to be possible. I’ve read every book and scroll ever written on the subject of the shadowblack—some of which cost me a small fortune to have translated. Over the centuries, mages and natural philosophers have tried everything to decode the way in which the markings operate. Some performed experiments attempting to intentionally imprint shadow onto another human being.”

  “Why?” I demanded, suddenly feeling the knot in my belly. “Why would anyone do that?”

  He shrugged, unconcerned by either the question or my anger. “People sometimes do awful things in the name of discovery, Kellen. They want so badly to understand how the universe works that they’ll commit any act, no matter how dark or soulless, to find answers to the questions that haunt them.”

  People like my own grandmother apparently.

  Was it worth it, Seren’tia? I wondered. Ruining my life, just to satisfy some arcane curiosity?

  “Strange,” the abbot said, peering at me through one of his lenses.

  “What is?” I asked.

  He leaned back and reached for another of the metal arms and swung a mirror into place so I could see what had captured his attention. “Look at the three innermost circles of your markings. See how the lines intersect, closing on themselves like rings?”

  I stared into the mirror, tracing the markings of my shadowblack with my gaze, but the more closely I followed the lines, the more I seemed to get lost, returning to where I’d started over and over again.

  “You’ve got to focus,” the abbot urged. “Our eyes aren’t really meant to peer into shadow, so our minds get foggy when we try. Keep your attention on the line of the marking and don’t let yourself become distracted.”

  It was harder than he made it sound. Harder than should have been possible, in fact. Eventually though—and at the cost of a sudden, massive headache that felt like a spike coming out of my eye—I saw what he was talking about. “They’re not rings,” I said. “I mean, they’re shaped like rings, but the word feels wrong for what I’m seeing.”

  “Tell me,” he said, his own eye appearing inhumanly large as he watched me through one of his lenses. “Don’t look for the precise word so much as the metaphor.”

  But neither would come. It was as if my mind was resisting, fighting to keep me from describing what I was seeing. It was like trying to untie an incredibly complicated knot inside my own head … as if the shadowblack itself was a mind chain keeping me from uttering the words. Then it came to me—something Diadera had silently conveyed to me when she’d touched my markings in the abbot’s tower, and that let me break through. “A lock,” I said, gasping for breath. “The rings are like the rotating discs of a combination lock!”

  The abbot pulled the mirror away and then the various glass lenses he’d positioned around me. “Yeah, kid. That’s what I see too.”

  Something in the way he said it made me uneasy. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Diadera thought I might be … I think the word she used was enigmatist.”

  “A seer of hidden truths,” the abbot said wistfully. “One who looks into shadow and witnesses the secrets locked in the hearts and minds of others. I’ve always hoped to meet an enigmatist one day. The gods know we could use one at the abbey.” He looked at me with more sympathy than I could stand. “But it isn’t secrets that you see, is it?”

  What I saw, when the attacks came, were distorted nightmares. I saw the very worst in people. But even if I wasn’t an enigmatist, one truth was becoming clear to me. My fingers reached up to touch the closed rings around my left eye. “It’s because of how she banded me, isn’t it?”

  He looked uncomfortable, only replying when he saw I wouldn’t let the matter go. “When your grandmother fashioned those closed rings around your eye, those locks, as you called them, she bound the shadowblack inside you. She made it so you wouldn’t be able to draw on its abilities.”

  “Why?” I pleaded. “Why would she do this to me?”

  I guess the look on my face must’ve been pathetic enough to elicit the truth, because this time he didn’t hesitate. “I think she found a way to use you as a source of power.”

  “Like an oasis,” I said numbly. “My grandmother was turning me into her own personal oasis.”

  I sat on that hard, uncomfortable chair, surrounded by bits of metal and glass, being watched—touched—by this stranger. I recognised the look of pity in his expression as the same one I’d had for fellow initiates back among my people when they learned they were Sha’Tep and would never be mages. The sounds outside the building grew louder in my ears. Diadera. Tournam. Butelios. All of them training together, applauding each other’s accomplishments, learning to use their shadowblack abilities to protect themselves and the people they cared about.

  “I’m truly sorry, Kellen,” the abbot said, making one last drawing in his notebook before moving his equipment out of the way. “I’ll keep trying to find a way to unlock your bands, I promise.” He sighed, and placed a hand on my shoulder. “I can’t imagine why anyone would do this to their own kin.”

  Ever since the day the black markings had first appeared on my face, I’d been asking myself why my grandmother had banded me in shadow, what I could possibly have done to make her do this to me. But the answer was so obvious now, so eminently logical, that I wondered how I hadn’t known it all along. Seren’tia had been my father’s mother. A true and proper mage of the Jan’Tep people. I felt almost relieved when I said, “She used me because that’s what family is for.”

  29

  Introductions and Interventions

  The second-to-last thing I needed to see right then was Diadera waiting for me outside the cauldron with a sly grin. “Have a fine time in there, did you?”

  She was leaning against one of the thin black columns supporting the cloister, arms folded across her chest and one hip jutting in a way that even in my morbid state threatened to awaken a desire for something other than revenge against my family. Too bad I couldn’t trust her any more than I could them. “What do you want, Diadera? Here to play another round of ‘seduce or slay’?”

  She brushed aside my rudeness without seeming to even notice it, much less be offended. “The abbot said, when the two of you were done, I should introduce you to the rest of the shadowcasters properly.”

  That was the absolute last thing I needed. “Maybe some other time.”

  “Have other plans, do you?” she asked, sauntering up to me.

  “Nothing much,” I admitted. “Breaking out of this hole, climbing down a mountain, stealing a ship—learning how to sail, of course—and then making my way home.”

  She tapped a finger on my chest. “Sounds like a lot of work, and something that can as easily be started after I fulfil my sacred duty to make polite introductions.” She gestured behind her to the training grounds. “Besides, everyone’s dying to meet the deadly Argosi wanderer who kills—well, threatens to kill—just about everyone who dares look cross-eyed at him.”

  “I�
��m not an Argosi,” I said reflexively, but my attention was taken up with the five people standing in the centre of the grounds waiting for me. Butelios I already knew of course, along with Tournam and the girl he’d called Ghilla. There were two others as well. A skinny boy who was younger, maybe thirteen or so, and a tall girl closer to my age. “Why are you all teenagers?”

  Diadera shrugged. “That’s when the shadowblack first appears for most of us. These first few years we can learn to control it without having to devote ourselves body and soul to suppressing it the way most of the monks do. The discipline that requires is … severe.” She touched a finger to my bottom lip. “All the more reason to fool around while you can, Kellen.”

  Despite knowing this was a tactic with her, my mouth went dry and I could feel my cheeks flush.

  Ancestors. What flaw in my breeding makes obvious ploys like this work so well on me?

  For her part, Diadera wore a painted-on expression of wide-eyed innocence, waiting for my response. Anything I tried to say would come out in a childlike stammer. My voice would probably break—as it generally does in these situations—and she would then chuckle at my naive awkwardness. Only I was tired of people messing with my head.

  I may be no more an Argosi than Butelios, but I’ve studied a little of the four ways and even more of the seven talents. In particular, Ferius made sure I learned how to—as she called it—“be handsome.” Rather than say anything, I straightened my back, imagining a wall behind me and aligning my head, shoulders and butt to it, then made myself relax in that pose.

  Stupid, I know, but it works.

  Ferius also taught me how to smile, which she referred to as “listening with your eyes.” I looked at Diadera, not trying to stare her down or outfox her, but simply listening to what her eyes told me. You don’t force the smile itself—that comes naturally. Ferius claimed this was because you’re finding the beauty in another person, and witnessing true beauty always leads to the best smiles.

  Hogwash of course.

  “Wow,” Diadera said.

  I tilted my head, but didn’t speak. The first part of arta loquit is quiet. Let the other person be the notes in the music. You play the silences.

  I think Diadera realised she’d been staring at me too long, because she reached up and pinched my cheek between her thumb and forefinger. “You have an interesting face, you know that? For a Jan’Tep, I mean.”

  I ignored the jibe, partly because I knew it for what it was—an attempt to reassert control by getting a rise out of me—but also because it invited the question that had been poking at the back of my mind since I’d first met her. “I know Tournam is Berabesq, and Butelios is a northerner, but you still haven’t let on where you’re from.”

  She slipped into her performance so smoothly it was like watching an actress step out onto the stage. “Can’t you tell a proper Daroman court girl when you meet one?” She gave me a graceful, almost florid curtsy, the movements nimble and fluid. Rehearsed. When she’d touched my shadowblack markings up in the tower, she’d shared details about herself and her life with me, but this one thing she’d kept secret.

  You’re no more Daroman than I am, Diadera. So why are you lying?

  “No more stalling,” she said, taking my hand and leading me towards the waiting crowd. “Time for you to make friends.”

  Yeah. That was not going to happen.

  I’ve never been comfortable in groups. When you’re a Jan’Tep initiate, the rules are simple: the more talented you are at magic, the more allies you have. In my clan, everyone knew who was who and what they could do. Now I was facing strangers who looked entirely too comfortable around each other, and altogether too suspicious of me. The last time I’d been in a situation like this had been at the Academy of the Seven Sands. There I’d used Ferius’s tricks to ingratiate me with Seneira’s classmates. At the time it had seemed a challenge as complex to navigate as the most esoteric spells and rituals. By comparison, this was much, much worse.

  “Ready for a proper duel then, cloud boy?” Tournam asked. Evidently the abbot’s earlier intervention had only meant a temporary reprieve.

  This guy’s never going to stop, I realised then. He’s just going to keep finding excuses to go after me until one of us gets hurt. If Reichis were here, he’d’ve chittered about how there’s no shame in getting beat up, just so long as the other guy gets it worse. Squirrel cat wisdom was starting to grow on me.

  “Stop right there,” Diadera said, her tone making it clear she had a grand plan for all of this. “Now, we’re all going to play a little game I call ‘nobody kills anybody else.’ Anyone need me to explain the rules?”

  The tall girl I hadn’t yet met came closer. “Why does Tournam call you ‘cloud boy’?” Auburn hair hung down to her jaw, framing high cheekbones and a heart-shaped face. Her chin was soft but the line of her mouth was sharp. So were the shadowblack markings that traced the ridges of her eyes like a harlequin’s mask. Even without seeing her tattooed bands beneath the sleeves of the long leather coat she wore, I could tell she was Jan’Tep. My people have a certain stand-offish quality that’s hard to disguise.

  “That’s Suta’rei,” Diadera said quietly to me. “Just because she’s one of your people, doesn’t mean she’ll take kindly to you, so be polite.”

  It’s not like any of the other Jan’Tep I’d encountered recently had been friendly. Nonetheless, I accepted the advice and gave a straight answer for once. Tapping my right cheek just below the eye, I said, “He means the sasutzei I carry around with me. It’s a type of wind spirit.”

  The younger girl, Ghilla, came at me fast as a rattlesnake. “You talkin’ ’bout whisper magic, boy? Who taught you that?”

  Her accent and sing-song manner of speaking were reminiscent of Mamma Whispers. So was the fact that she kept calling me “boy,” even though she was at least three years younger than me. Remembering my visit to the swamps outside Teleidos, I put a finger to my lips. “Shh. The spirits, they like to keep their secrets.”

  “You mockin’ my tongue, boy?” she asked, blackened lips pursed.

  “Probably best you not antagonise Ghilla either,” Diadera murmured. “Actually, if you could see your way to not annoying any of them, that would be best.”

  See? This is the problem with groups. How was I supposed to know whether following Diadera’s advice would make my life easier, or if showing weakness would in fact make me a target? I didn’t like the look of these people. Underneath the stylish coats and posed self-confidence, there was a feral quality to the way they stood there. The air around them practically thrummed with barely contained animosity.

  “I be mockin’ your tongue,” I said to Ghilla, “but only cos I don’t know you so well. Maybe later I’ll find other things to laugh at.”

  The girl took in a long, deep breath, and I could already see the wisps of smoke coming from the edges of her lips. Evidently Diadera really was going to have to explain the rules to “nobody kills anybody else.” “You lookin’ to play with me, boy?” Ghilla asked.

  “Watch out,” Tournam said, jostling her out of the way. “That spirit in his eye did some nasty business to the stygian.” His smile was more a sneer than anything else. “Guess that’s your real ability, eh? Wait for your little sasutzei girlfriend to come and fight for you?”

  Another snide remark. Another attempt to get a rise out of me. I fully recognised that I was putting myself at needless risk by taking his bait, but I couldn’t seem to make myself care any more. Still, I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of attacking first.

  From the moment I’d met him, I’d recognised both his colouring and accent as Berabesq. Now, though, I recalled that “Tournam” was one of the twelve names given to the sons of high clerics. That, along with his jibe about women—a sentiment not shared outside their religious orthodoxy—told me a lot about him.

  “You trying to stare me down, Jan’Tep?” he asked.

  His ribbons started to come for me, but Diader
a got between us. “Step back, Tournam.”

  He did as she bade him, using the opportunity to grin back at the others. “Look, he’s using his special power already!”

  There were some chuckles and snorts. Ghilla scowled at him. So did the younger boy I hadn’t met yet. None of them said anything though.

  Tournam turned back to me. “Well? Is that how it works? Your mouth gets you into trouble; then you wait for a girl to protect you?”

  “Almost always,” I replied. The others chuckled—more at him than at me. I should’ve left it there, but I was piecing together a few details about him in my mind and I’ve always been too much of a smart-ass to keep my mouth shut. “They must’ve loved you back home, Tournam,” I nodded at the markings around his arms. “Tell me, when they chased you from the temples, was it your dad leading the pack or did the whole family get involved?”

  Diadera flashed me an angry glare. “Are you trying to make this difficult?”

  I was, in fact. I should’ve been scared, and I guess I was, at some level. But some deeper part of me wanted Tournam to attack me. It didn’t take long for him to oblige me either. Before Diadera could react, three of his ribbons lashed out, knocking her aside and wrapping around my arms and my neck.

  “You should let me go,” I said, not even trying to sound calm, some perverse part of me delighting in the thought that this was going to end with blood spilled. His blood.

  “And why would I want to release you, spy?”

  “Because I’m very weak. You should never pick on the weak, Tournam. When a weak man fights back, he knows there can be only two outcomes.” I didn’t even bother to resist the tug of his ribbons on my arms as Tournam yanked me closer. “Now, see, if I were a proper Jan’Tep mage, I might use any number of spells to shatter your little shadows.”

  “If you had any real magic, you’d’ve—”

  “—shown it before, I know. You’re absolutely right. I can barely manage a little breath magic here and there. So no ember spells to blast your ribbons apart, no silk magic to addle your mind into releasing me. I can’t use shadows like you do either. Hell—” I gave a gentle tug against his ribbons—“I’m not even strong enough to keep you from dragging me around the length and breadth of this training yard to put on a show for your friends.”