The shadowblack mage stared at me in surprise and confusion, but only for a fraction of a second, because then the twin powders exploded and blew out his throat.
What remained of the shadowblack tendrils holding Diadera and the others were quickly pulled back into Tas’diem, no doubt trying to preserve what was left of the mage’s body from being destroyed. His captives fell to the ground. The six shadowcasters quickly recovered their footing and came to stand next to me, staring in amazement down at the soundlessly screaming Tas’diem, who even now continued his transformation into the demonic form that had been waiting to emerge.
I looked over at them. “Any time now,” I said.
Tournam stared at me. “Any time wha—Oh, right.”
Despite my revulsion—and the not inconsiderable fear that Tas’diem might still kill me—I grinned. It was kind of nice to be the one who knew what the hell he was doing for a change.
The shadowcasters turned their remarkable abilities against the mage. Tournam’s ribbons grabbed hold of his arms and legs, pulling them in opposite directions even as they lifted him up into the air as he’d done to them. Diadera’s markings flew from her cheeks to swarm around the dying mage’s head, tearing apart what remained of his face. The others joined in, their combined assault making resistance impossible. Only Butelios held back, either because his powers weren’t suited to violence or because he knew it was no longer necessary. There was nothing left of the mighty Tas’diem but a mound of bones and broken flesh, all covered in a thick black oil. I wondered if I’d end up much the same way one day.
The others rubbed at numb limbs, huffing and puffing even as they leered down at the dead mage like a pack of wolves searching for any sign that some shred of life remained in their prey, waiting to be torn apart.
“I wonder what he was like,” I said, feeling as if someone had to speak up for the poor wretch. “Maybe he wasn’t such a bad person before this happened to him.”
The shadowcasters—all of them, even Diadera—looked back at me as if they now wanted to kill me even more than Tas’diem. “Maybe he wasn’t such a bad person?” Suta’rei repeated, the growl in her voice reminiscent of Reichis after a fresh kill. “Did you not hear him brag about what he did to those the war coven sent him to hunt?” Her eyes fluttered, the black markings of her lids like the wings of an angry butterfly. She looked past me at the muddy track of road behind us. Abruptly she strode over, grabbed my arm and starting hauling me down the road.
“What are you doing?” I asked, trying to pull away.
Whether because she was remarkably strong or simply out of her raw fury, she didn’t let go. “Come, fool,” she said. “I will show you what kind of man he was.”
34
What Kind of Man
There were a dozen of them, waiting for us outside the small village, all of them bearing shadowblack markings on their faces or limbs. They stood unclothed, stiff as withered trees stripped of their bark. Dead eyes stared out from grey faces. Blackened tongues lolled from open mouths like dogs waiting on scraps of food. You might have mistaken these for signs of life, were it not for the smell.
“Why are they still standing?” I asked, though it came out as a strangled whisper.
Suta’rei strode over to the nearest victim. What must have once been a heavyset frame now looked … hollowed. She spoke quietly to herself, almost as if in prayer, which was impossible since she was Jan’Tep like me. When she was finished she gave the man a gentle push. He tipped backwards like a tree felled by an axe, his body perfectly rigid until it hit the ground and shattered into fragments that looked like shards of glass.
“Tell the boy how it works,” Ghilla said. I hadn’t realised until then that the others had followed, but they were all there, still as the dead, quiet witnesses to horrors I had yet to comprehend.
Suta’rei gestured to the victims. “You see the runes on their chests?” she asked in our language. It seemed an odd thing to do, since it meant the others likely wouldn’t understand. Again my eyes went to her forearms to see which bands she’d sparked, but they were still covered by the sleeves of her coat. “Breath, blood and ember,” she said, noting my gaze. “Not that it will matter much once the black takes me.” She turned to look back in the direction we’d come, to where we’d left the remains of Tas’diem. “I’ll become just like him one day.”
Butelios came to stand beside her. “Keep faith. The monks of the abbey resist its influence. So will you.”
Why would a northerner learn to speak Jan’Tep?
Suta’rei caught my eye. “He understands our language, but not our people. None of them do. They aren’t like us.”
Because of our shared heritage, I immediately knew what she meant, and the thought sent a shudder through me. For centuries our people had valued nothing so highly as magic. Even I—even after all this time in exile—still found myself at night dreaming of spells at night. Spells to protect myself. Spells to enact my will on the world. Spells to … just to feel the movement of magic inside me. We Jan’Tep were born addicts, our every impulse urging us to pursue power at any cost.
“Tas’diem was a lord magus,” she said, not needing to add that you don’t become one without an indomitable will, and yet he’d succumbed utterly to the shadowblack’s seductive promise of power. If resisting the effects of the shadowblack meant overcoming those urges, then Suta’rei was right, and we were both screwed.
“You said something about runes?” I asked, desperate to leave that particularly awful thought behind.
She led me closer to the bodies, eleven of which still waited there. She pointed a slim finger at an elderly woman’s chest. “Look, here.”
Like the others, this one was naked. Averting my gaze at a time like this seemed futile, not to mention craven, so I examined her with as much dispassion as I could summon. There, beginning just below her collarbone, was a circular design etched into her flesh that went all the way down to just below her navel. It was hard to make out at first because it was simply more black on black, but the texture was smoother, less shrivelled, than her own flesh. Within the circumference were inscribed a dozen sigils, each one intricately etched with the same smooth black texture. “Why would he mark her with a spell circle?” I asked.
Suta’rei held my gaze. “Do they perform abnegation rituals in your clan?”
“No. Never.” A chill came to my bones at the mere thought of it. My people—my clan at least—only practise what are called the tactical high magics. We consider elaborate rituals full of intricate chants and the imbibing of elixirs and such nonsense to be beneath us.
Suta’rei considered me for a moment. “Among my clan, we sometimes punish those guilty of capital crimes by imprinting abnegations on their flesh.” She pointed to the dead woman’s eyes. “See how empty they are? Not simply lacking in life, but devoid of will. The abnegation cripples the spirit, making the victim nothing more than a vessel for the whims of others. Soulbinding, we call it. Even Sha’Tep servants can command such a one to do anything they require. For Tas’diem, however, it served a different purpose.”
The circular designs on the blackened flesh of the victims’ torsos were easier for me to spot now. In fact, they fairly gleamed at me as a burning itch emanated from the markings around my left eye. Soulbinding, Suta’rei had called it. What had Tas’diem sought to accomplish with these abnegations? Was it simply to create a small army of slaves to watch over him? Wait, no, he’d said something about staying behind after the war coven so he could drain the dead …
“They were just vessels to him,” I murmured. “So he could …” I couldn’t finish the sentence. Saying the words out loud would have felt like giving the atrocity that had been committed here new life.
“The lord magus used the abnegation ritual to loosen the shadowblack from their spirits, drawing it into himself,” Suta’rei finished for me. “To increase his power.”
Was this what you’d planned for me, Grandmother? To wait until
I was old enough and then use me as Tas’diem used these poor souls?
The itching in my eye went away as a darker realisation infected my thoughts: some clans were even worse than my own. Some mages more avaricious for power than my father. Some crimes worse than simply killing those who got in your way. “Maybe the war coven have it right. If this is what we can become? If we’re capable of—”
“It’s not their choice to make!” Tournam shouted. He started pushing the bodies down one after another. “If something must be done, then we’ll do it. Not some Jan’Tep posse who do it for the greater glory of their would-be king!” The corpses shattered into fragments of desiccated flesh when they hit the ground, leaving behind glassy shards black as onyx.
Diadera came closer, eyes watching me. “What are you saying, Kellen? That we should stand by and let the war coven do its work? Should we let them hunt us down as well?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I don’t know anything any more.”
In my travels I’d grown accustomed—no, comforted—by the belief that I’d already seen the worst the world had to offer. But in the past few days I’d seen my first demon, and then a man who longed so much to become one that he’d commit the atrocities to which we now bore witness. In that light, it was hard to convince myself that I wouldn’t find even worse things out there someday soon.
I missed Nephenia right then—missed the way she’d get that steel in her eye at times like these, determined neither to bend nor break in the face of people’s infinite capacity for malice. I missed Ferius and how she could stare down the darkness and laugh at everything hidden inside it. Most of all, I wished Reichis were here to bare his teeth and promise a thousand punishments he’d inflict on all the mages like Tas’diem, even if most of his schemes involved eating eyeballs.
“Are you all right?” Butelios asked, jostling me.
“I’m fine, what do you—”
He spoke quietly. “You were growling.”
“I was just … It’s nothing.”
The big man leaned in closer. “Next time do it in private. Among us, such outbursts could easily be misinterpreted.”
The others were staring at me, watching as though looking for signs I might … They’re wondering if the shadowblack is taking me—if I’m becoming like Tas’diem. If they might have to kill me.
My world, it seemed, was becoming more precarious by the minute.
“We should leave this place,” Suta’rei said, switching back from Jan’Tep to the more common Daroman that everyone else spoke.
Tournam took the boy, Azir, by the shoulder, pulling him from his incessant staring at the fallen dead with the hideous abnegation marks carved into their corpses. “Shake it off, runt, and shadow us up a way home.”
Azir nodded and stamped his bare foot down hard on the ground. The black markings on his feet stretched out before him into the distance. He stepped forward and the others lined up behind him. I was about to follow when I felt a sudden chill in my right eye—the one inhabited by the sasutzei. I felt the wind pick up around me, swirling the leaves and bringing with it a sound so soft I thought at first I was imagining it. “What is it, Suzy?” I asked in a whisper.
Again the wind blew, and I heard the sound louder this time. Weeping.
“There’s someone else here,” I said.
Tournam looked back at me. “I doubt it. Your countryman won’t have left anyone alive. They never do.”
I ignored the jibe and took off at a run into the village.
“Hey!” he shouted. “Don’t think we won’t leave you here, cloud boy!”
“Kellen!” Diadera called out. “Where are you going?”
I followed the whimpers and sobs, spurred on by Suzy, who not only enabled me to hear them but lent the cries an urgency with her own blasts of freezing air in my eye. I heard the others following, Tournam demanding to know what I was doing.
I must’ve run through the entire village before I found the crowd of men, women and children huddled together—at least fifty of them. A few of them had the shadowblack marks, most didn’t. But they all had one thing in common. Around each of their necks wound a single strand of gleaming copper wire, going from one to the other, linking them all together. A young boy was trying desperately to run away, held in check by a man who looked to be his father. The other adults were hissing furiously for the boy to stop. “You’ll kill us all, you little fool!” a woman said in a thickly accented borderlands tongue, her own fingers grasping desperately at the strand of wire cutting into the skin of her neck.
“A blood noose,” Suta’rei said, catching up to me.
I’d never seen one up close before, but I understood the principle. Spelled copper wire wrapped around each of their necks would choke them all if even one dared to move away from the centre of the spell. “Can you break the binding?” I asked. “You’ve sparked your blood band. If you—”
She shook her head. “It’s more complicated than that. I’d need to have sparked iron too. Probably sand as well.”
“You Jan’Tep,” Tournam said, extending his arms out towards the mass of bodies. “Always looking to your feeble little spells instead of your faith.”
The ribbons of shadow unwound from his arms and stretched out towards the crowd. “No!” Suta’rei shouted, knocking him aside.
He looked up with rage in his eyes, and his shadowblack ribbons reared at her. “Have you lost your mind?”
“If your bands touch the wire you’ll trigger the constriction portion of the spell. You could’ve cut all their heads off, you idiot!”
“Then how are we supposed to remove it? We can’t just leave them like this!”
Tournam was right. The air was chill, and it would grow colder as the sun went down. From the looks of them, the villagers had been out here a long while already. Tas’diem must have needed to perform the abnegation ritual on one person at a time, keeping the rest penned up together like livestock. That raised an important question. “How was Tas’diem freeing them when he wanted to take one?”
Suta’rei pointed to the centre of the crowd. “The ends of the copper wire meet in a knot that functions as a kind of lock. With iron and blood magic you can manipulate the lock to release one victim at a time.”
I turned to face Tournam, who was rising to his feet. “Can you use your shadow ribbons to get into the centre of the crowd and untie the knot?”
He shook his head. “They’re packed together too tight. I can’t control something I can’t see.”
A soft caress of air on my right eyeball told me Suzy was trying to get my attention. “I know,” I whispered back to her.
“What is it, boy?” Ghilla asked, watching me closely. “What’s the spirit sayin’?”
My fingers went to the bottom of my shirt where my coins were sewn inside a folded hem. “I have an idea,” I said.
Her eyes narrowed. “Is it a good one?”
The people crowded together stared at me, evidently wondering the same thing. What I intended to do would require a level of dexterity I’d never attempted before with the sotocastra coin. If I got it wrong, I’d end up killing each and every one of the captives.
Arta precis, I reminded myself. Persuasion. Ferius excelled at it, but I’d never shown much promise. “Don’t worry,” I told the villagers. “I’ve got this completely under control.”
35
The Lock and the Key
In Gitabria, the coin dancers, or castradazi as they’re called, are either beloved folk heroes or a reviled criminal underclass, depending on who you ask. In the old days, they could perform all manner of feats and tricks with their special coins. But where there were once twenty-one different castragenzia or “beautiful coins,” now you’d be hard-pressed to find a coin dancer who possessed more than two or three.
I had five.
As gifts from strangers went, the coins were pretty great. The only problem was that I didn’t know how most of them worked. Fortunately, one of them was a soto
castra—a warden’s coin—and I’d had some experience with that one.
I felt around in the sewn fold of my shirt and retrieved the smallest coin. Silver and black, one side depicting a lock, the other a key. Its most intriguing property was the ability to manipulate locking mechanisms. You can kind of see why Gitabria’s secret police weren’t fond of this particular castragenzé. I flipped the coin in the air a few times, partly to get the feel for it again and partly to calm my nerves.
“What are you planning to do with that?” Tournam asked. His tone of voice made it clear he had exactly zero confidence in my abilities.
Guys like Tournam always bring out the worst in me. “Break the dead mage’s spell and save all these people from a horrible death. In other words, do what you clearly can’t do.”
He grabbed my shoulder, nearly sending the coin flying. Before I could even think of doing something about it, Butelios picked him up and gently moved him a couple of feet away. “Let him try.”
Suta’rei came to stand next to me. “For an outcast, you don’t go out of your way to make friends.”
“I’m not opposed to it,” I replied. “I’m just not very good at it lately.”
She watched the way I flipped the coin in the air and how it sometimes would float for a fraction of a second before spinning on its axis and falling back down into my hand. Jan’Tep are particularly watchful for the subtleties of somatic gestures. “The coin responds to the force and direction of your throws, generating some kind of contrary motion from the—”
“Nah,” I said. “That’s all just Jan’Tep nonsense. The coin’s just dancing is all.”
Once I had a feel for the coin, I balanced it on the side of my index finger between the nail and the first knuckle. The way the warden’s coin works is that you find the right position and axis to match the mechanism of the lock you’re trying to open, almost like how a sympathy spell creates a bond between two different objects. Only with a spell, your mind and will define the connection, whereas with a sotocastra it’s all done by feel.
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