Soulbinder

by Sebastien de Castell

  “Spirits!” Ghilla swore at the noises that followed. “How long since you fed that thing?”

  “Nephenia wasn’t neglecting him,” I replied, “but she didn’t have any butter biscuits to hand.”

  “He sure seems to like them,” Azir said, edging a little closer.

  Reichis’s furry face appeared out of the pack and he growled at each of us in turn, blurry little eyes darting in all directions for his intended prey. “Here,” I said, holding out the remaining biscuits. “Guess you’re feeling better, eh?” It was all I could do to keep the desperate sense of relief from turning me into a weeping mess.

  For his part, the squirrel cat ignored me, focusing all his attention on devouring the butter biscuits. He even shook one in his mouth several times as though trying to break its neck before gulping it down. When he was finished he gave a final sniff in the air and, apparently satisfied there were no more butter biscuits within range, tucked himself back in the pack and set to snoring loudly. I knelt down to close up the top. “Hope you’re planning on being more help than this when the fighting starts,” I whispered.

  “If you’re done playing with your pet,” Diadera said, “there are seventy-seven Jan’Tep out there and I’d like to see every single one counter-banded before they take their first step on that bridge.”

  “What?” Butelios asked. “Surely we need only perform the procedure on a few.” He turned to me. “You said once the first were afflicted, the others would abandon the spell.”

  “No mage would ever risk losing his magic forever just to hold a bridge together,” I said, but now my attention was on Suta’rei. She’d begun to set out a tray of burning braziers with pools of molten metallic inks in copper dishes. She studiously avoided catching my eye.

  Why won’t she look at me? She’s … ashamed. But why? I felt the first stirrings of an itch in my left eye, presaging one of my shadowblack headaches. No, damn it! Not now. I need to figure out what’s happening here.

  I started towards Suta’rei, but she turned away from me. “You’re not planning on giving the posse the chance to run, are you?” I asked.

  She made no reply, only exchanging a glance with the abbot. He was staring at the pieces of paper he’d brought with him from his desk. Suta’rei already knows the reverse sigils for counter-banding a mage. What is on those pages that she could possibly need?

  The sensation around my left eye changed. Now it felt as if someone were pinching the lids. I blinked in response, and for just an instant I was looking right at the pages in the abbot’s hand. No, not looking at them … I’m seeing into them somehow. They were sketches like the ones he’d taken at the cauldron of the unique patterns my grandmother had inscribed around my eye, but he’d altered the designs. Before I could see more, the strange vision fled me.

  “Kellen?” Diadera asked. “Are you all right?”

  I blinked again, trying to peer deeper, but nothing happened. I poured my will into the markings around my eye, trying to force them awake the way I would the breath band on my forearm. Again, nothing. What had triggered my shadowblack? What thought had enabled me to see so clearly for that brief moment?

  Questions. I’d been asking myself questions. That’s what awakens the markings … Not force of will. Not magic. I remembered then how highly the Dowager Magus of my clan had prized clever questions—how they’d been the key to breaking the mind chain that imprisoned her. My shadowblack must work the same way … the ability can only be unlocked by asking the right questions.

  A hundred of them formed in my mind, all shouting for my attention. They weren’t the right ones though, because all they produced was a sharp pain in my eye. Focus. Find the right one. I let all the clues and details I’d been ignoring until now arrange themselves in my mind, each one like a little sigil stone bearing a dozen different questions I’d failed to see before. I knocked them over one at a time like dominoes until there was only one left, and upon it a single question: why would the abbot be so interested in my shadowblack?

  “Ancestors …” I said out loud, as I once again became aware of my markings. They weren’t pinching or burning any more, but twitching, turning, like the dials on a lock.

  “Kellen?” Diadera asked again. I think her hand was on my arm, but it felt distant, like a soft breeze. Her voice was faint—an echo from somewhere far away. “Something’s happening to you …”

  Even without being able to see myself, I knew the twisting black lines around my eye had changed. No longer were they the dials of a lock, binding the shadowblack inside me; instead they were like … lenses that shifted and adjusted themselves as my gaze went to the abbot. No, not to him. Inside him. In the past, when the attacks came, people and places would become terrifying, warped distortions of themselves. Now I saw with perfect clarity, bearing witness to the secrets buried beneath the abbot’s lies.

  “Incredible,” I heard him say, but nestled between those syllables lay other words, inscribed in shadow. They were scrawled all over the skin of his face too, and carved into the flesh of his hands. They told tales of pain and fear, of blood and vengeance. It would have taken a lifetime to read them all. I didn’t need to though, because the answers I was looking for were written elsewhere, in the furtive movements of the one person who still refused to meet my gaze. Suta’rei continued placing her instruments and adjusting the flames beneath the braziers, slowly, precisely, carefully, because that’s how you have to move when your hands are shaking. “Those aren’t the inks for counter-banding, are they?” I asked, though I could already read the truth in the trembling of her lips. “You’re preparing the abnegation ritual.”

  She froze. Her eyes finally met mine and there I saw, plain as day, letters written in ink the colour of shame as they desperately spelled out a single word: duty.

  I flipped open the tops of the pouches at my sides. “Step away from the bridge, Suta’rei.”

  “Whoa,” Tournam said, coming to stand between us. “Everybody calm down until we figure this out.”

  “Don’t you get it?” I asked. “The abbot’s been lying to you. He’s not trying to destroy the spell bridge. He wants the posse to come here.”

  “But why?” Azir asked. “Why would he—”

  I ignored him, keeping watch on the abbot in case he made a move. Of all of them, his shadowblack was the most dangerous. “You lied to me back at the cauldron,” I said. “All those drawings you made, all that nonsense you spouted about figuring out how to unlock my bands, it was a ruse to hide the real reason you’ve been so fascinated with my markings ever since I got here. You wanted to learn how to band others in shadow.”

  He shrugged, betraying not the slightest hint of worry, nor did my shadowblack reveal any within him. “If there were more of us in the world, maybe our enemies would think twice before trying to hunt us all down.”

  Azir, unsteady on his legs, stumbled as he tried to make his way to the abbot. “But, sir, what if they don’t want to be shadowblacks?”

  “Stay out of this, you idiot,” Tournam warned. Even without my markings shifting to focus on him, I could easily interpret the confusion on his face. He knew a fight was coming, and now he was trying to decide whose side to take. I saw the same question written in the expressions of Diadera and Ghilla too.

  “Everything changed when Suta’rei told the abbot about Tas’diem and what he’d done to those villagers,” I said, hoping that if the rest of them could just see how far gone he was, they’d force him to abandon his plan. “He’s going to imprint the patterns my grandmother used to bind me in shadow directly onto the strands of the spell bridge. He’ll infect every mage in the posse with the shadowblack.”

  “So what, boy?” Ghilla asked. “Maybe once they know what it’s like, livin’ as we do, they’ll stop huntin’ us.”

  “Don’t you understand? Once he’s banded them in shadow, the mages won’t be able to break their connection to the abbot. He won’t have to carve the abnegation sigils into their flesh the way T
as’diem did; he’ll burn them right into their very souls. He’ll force his will upon them, make them kill each other, and when that’s done …”

  “When I’ve finished doing what’s needed to protect this abbey, I’ll drain each and every one of those bastards dry.” He shook his head ruefully. “I wonder, Kellen, is it hard for someone who wraps themselves in petty notions of Argosi frontier philosophy to witness the simple truth of how wars are fought?”

  “You don’t have to do this.” I turned to Suta’rei. “You swore you’d never become like Tas’diem, but what you’re doing now is no better. Banding them in shadow and inflicting the abnegation ritual on them is worse than murder.”

  “Leave the girl alone!” the abbot shouted, the anger in his voice failing to hide his true meaning. Pay attention to me, it said. I’m in charge here. “Tell us, Kellen, with those newfound enigmatist abilities of yours, can you see your own role in all of this? After all, if you hadn’t been so desperate to rid yourself of the shadowblack, you might never have come here in the first place, and I never would’ve learned the secret to binding others in shadow. And if you hadn’t gone to spy on your own people, we wouldn’t have discovered how to exploit the spell bridge.”

  “You lousy son of a bitch.” Stupidly I tried to rush him, but Tournam caught my shoulder and threw me back.

  The abbot walked over to Suta’rei and took a long silver banding needle from her. Pure shadow oozed from the markings on his hand, winding up the narrow shaft to become a single glistening drop at the sharpened tip. “You accused me of being a religious zealot before, Kellen. Maybe I am, but my faith is in my people, and my religion is whatever it takes to keep them safe.” He knelt by the spell bridge, and with the end of his banding instrument began to trace the first glyph onto some unwitting mage’s soul.

  There was a roar, and Butelios shoved Tournam out of the way to get to the abbot. “No! I will not allow this abomination! I can’t let y—”

  Without so much as a word, without the abbot even turning to look at him, a tendril of shadow whipped out from the cuff of his robe and slammed Butelios against the gates. The big man slumped to the ground, unconscious, a thin trail of blood following the back of his head down the bars.

  “Get him out of here,” the abbot commanded Tournam and the others. “If you can bandage up his wound, fine. If he tries to resist, drop him over the mountainside.” When no one moved he turned to face them, righteous fury painted over the features of his face. “This is war, not some courtly game with polite little rules! Every day you people come to me, crying about your fears, about being exiled by your families, about being hounded by Jan’Tep bounty hunters. ‘Protect us,’ you plead, over and over and over again.” He raised up the silver banding instrument, filling it once again with his shadowblack. “Well, this is how it’s done.”

  For a moment, just a split second really, I thought the others might turn on him—that this daring, charismatic leader who had no idea how crazy he sounded had gone too far. But as I looked from Tournam to Suta’rei, to Ghilla, and finally to Diadera, I could read only their desperation to believe his words, the depths to which they were swayed by his rationalisations and enthralled by his promises to protect them. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt quite so alone as I did then.

  Without warning, the twisting black lines around my eye shifted again, returning to their usual patterns as the world once again buried itself in lies. Apparently I’d reached the limits of this “enigmatism” of mine. I guess uncovering the truth and knowing what to do with it are very different things. What am I supposed to do now, Grandmother? What purpose drove you to give me this gift that no sane person would want?

  I slid my hands into the powder pouches at my sides and faced the abbot. “You know, when we first met I said you were old, dumb and weak. What I should’ve said is that you’re old, dumb and dead.”

  The abbot went on with his banding, the black oil of his markings sliding down his wrists to provide the ink. “You want a duel then, Kellen? Want me to set down this instrument so we can see if the outlaw spellslinger can outdraw the big, bad tyrant?”

  “I can’t think of anything in the world I want more.”

  Diadera came close to me. “Kellen, you’re angry, and you have every reason to be concerned about the abbot’s plan, but please, just lis—”

  I pushed her away. “Don’t you touch me.” She was in the way of my shot, and with Tournam, Ghilla and Suta’rei already moving into position to protect the abbot, the angles were too tight. If there had ever been a moment when I could have won this fight without hurting these people who, despite everything I’d done, had offered me a place among them, it was long gone.

  “I warned you, Diadera,” the abbot said, still facing the bridge. “Soon as he showed up, you started making eyes at him, but I told you Kellen wasn’t the sort to seek out comfort or solace. No, that boy wears his markings like a Daroman marshal’s badge, as if being an outlaw was some kind of noble pursuit.”

  “It could have been real,” she said, though I wasn’t sure if she was talking to me or the abbot or herself. She was coming towards me again, those pale green eyes of hers promising we could still fix this, that it wasn’t too late. But by then my mind was too busy racing through every possible way out of this situation to think about the road never travelled.

  Wait till she’s close. Slip to the side, heel behind her knee, arm around the throat. A steel card at her neck. The others will hesitate, so push her towards the banding braziers. When the abbot and Suta’rei move to protect them, pull powder and fire. Tournam’s the fastest with his bands, but Azir’s the most valuable. Grab him and throw him towards the cliff so their attention is focused on saving him. Ghilla doesn’t care about anyone else, so she’ll be preparing to spew shadow fog. What do I do then?

  Diadera was inches away now. “Please,” she said. “You’re one of us.”

  Faster, damn it. Put all the pieces in play. Pull out every gambit you know.

  I call myself a spellslinger, but at heart I guess I’m just a con artist. Like my father once said, everything is tricks with me. The problem with tricks, though, is that sometimes the most devastating trick is the one that’s been played on you.

  Diadera reached up a hand to touch my markings. I looped my arm around it, catching her in a joint lock. Had she really come to me with some plea to get me to see reason, I would’ve had her. Problem was, she hadn’t. The shadowblack freckles from her cheeks flew into mine, burrowing deep under the skin, and in so doing, revealed an ability Diadera had kept hidden from me until now. I felt consciousness leave me as she took control of my mind, leaving no room for me inside it.

  Guess everyone’s a soulbinder these days.

  54

  The Apology

  To say I awoke an hour later would be imprecise. I was never asleep, not really. Diadera’s freckles had somehow infected my own shadowblack, giving her control over my body, because apparently the world needed of one more esoteric means of stealing a person’s freedom.

  I was seriously starting to wonder if maybe magic was just inherently evil.

  That aside, given that Diadera had played the inside of my mind like a badly tuned guitar, I was confident she knew I was now conscious, so I didn’t bother trying to hide it. Instead I sat up on the bed and watched her through the bars. The green eyes that stared back at me were no longer as bright, as if even they had been dimmed by the shadows lingering between us.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  She looked surprised. “You’re sorry? For what? You’re the one stuck in a cell, Kellen.”

  “Yeah, but I’ve been in lots of cells before.”

  “So?”

  “So, you’ve got to figure I must be pretty good at breaking out of them by now.”

  “I wish that were true this time.” She sounded sincere. It made it hard to hate her. Almost.

  I leaned back against the wall. The glassy black stone felt slick and unnatural now that I
knew it was all part of the abbot’s shadowblack. How much of this stuff could exist in one person’s body? Did he take more of it from people who died here? When they were taken over by demons, did he kill them only so that he could draw the shadowblack from them later?

  I allowed those and about a dozen other morbid questions to occupy my thoughts for a moment while I checked on Reichis. He was still inside the pack, sound asleep, crumbs of butter biscuits strewn over his fuzzy little muzzle. “Some help you were,” I said. “Where was all that tough-guy squirrel cat talk when I was being dragged here in preparation for the gallows?”

  “I won’t let anyone kill you,” Diadera said. “I promise.”

  I wiped off a few of the crumbs from Reichis’s face. He bit me. I found it oddly reassuring. “If you believe that, Diadera, then I’m even more sorry for you.”

  “Stop saying that! Stop telling me you’re sorry. You don’t know anything about me.”

  I closed the top of the pack. “Really?” I walked over to the bars and reached a hand through the gap. I was surprised that she let my finger touch the shadowblack freckles on her cheeks. You’re a lot like a friend of mine.

  No, you only think that. You’re like all the others. I show you a few carefully selected fragments of who I am and you think you see the whole picture. You don’t. You never even looked past the obvious, even when I … Even when I wanted you to.

  People who take over your bodies and lock you in cells have no business playing on your guilt. Still, it worked on me. As my sister is fond of reminding me, deep down I’m a sucker who’ll sell his own soul for the chance to be loved. Do you want to know what I see in you? I asked.

  I could feel the muscle in her cheek tighten. You think because you’re an enigmatist now you can break into my mind? Go ahead and try.