After the first sentence, it all came flooding back to Sarn. But they had taken something from him, and the magic urged him to take it back.
Sarn resisted. The letter was worth any price. Turning his back on the goblet of his magic, he scrubbed both hands over his face. Conflict raged inside him. His magic cared about itself and his son but not his brother.
Sarn leaned into the nearest wall while his head pounded and the magic ramped up its wordless objections. “Get it away from me. It’s yours. I give it freely. Do with it as you will.”
As his words fell into the silence, the storm inside Sarn quieted. “Can I go now?” Or did his lordship require something more from him? He had to get out of here to clear his head, but those snakes—where had they gone? Sarn lowered his hands. Bloody streaks marked their egress, but not one remained.
“Are you all right?”
No, the magic was running riot in his system, sensitizing him to every damned thing. Two forces pulled on Sarn, and each one wanted something different. Damn the fates for giving him two types of magic. “Let me go. I’ve done what you asked.”
Joranth’s silhouette waved. “Go and say nothing of this to anyone.”
Sarn nodded again, spun on his heel and stalked away. Magic punched the door, opening it before his hand touched the handle. Pristine marble met his startled gaze. Not a single bloody smear remained to show where those snakes had gone. They were full of his blood. He should be able to track them, but when he checked his map, there was no snake icon.
Then again, not much was registering except the need to get away from here fast. A sudden wave of dizziness sent Sarn crashing into a wall. Magic shielded his shoulder from harm. Beads of light marched up the back of his hand as he put away the map. Later, he’d do a more thorough check when his ears weren’t ringing.
Right now, just staying upright was a challenge. Sarn held his glowing hands in front of him, searching the blurs for obstacles as he tottered away.
Chapter 28
Sarn squeezed between two statues of armored men clobbering each other. Damn those Litherians and their quirky design ideas. In his veins, magic flowed undiluted, lighting them up. It powered every step and fueled every thought.
What am I?
A mage, said the magic.
But what did that really mean? Sarn careened past more statues as the questions kept coming. How could he still be staggering around after what they’d done to him? Was he even human anymore?
Yes, whispered the magic.
Relief stopped Sarn in his tracks, and he pressed a hand to his aching brow. I’m still human. Thank Fate because he’d started to wonder after the day he’d had.
Yes, but enhanced.
Enhanced how? Sarn asked, but the magic had said all it wanted to on this subject. Silence was its reply. He slowed and kicked a statue in frustration. Why did the magic always clam up after a couple questions?
“I come bearing gifts,” Ranispara said from around the next bend.
Sarn almost jumped out of his skin. Instead, he took cover behind the statue of a centaur trampling someone. His meandering route had taken him where he didn't belong—into a residential area. Inari’s icon shined, calling to him, but he fought the urge to go to her.
Inari laughed. “Avoiding your husband still?”
“What? Can’t I stop by to chat? Must I have a motive for my visit? All right you caught me. My sister’s place is a zoo what with her expanding brood and all. Can I crash on your couch? I brought a sweet red wine. Want to help me drink it?” Ranispara’s archer icon lifted her arm.
“What else are you offering?”
“Maybe a bit of news to sweeten the deal?”
“It depends on the news.”
“I might have a few juicy tidbits to share if you still have some of those cookies left.”
“Come on in. I baked a fresh batch. Nerule’s already in bed so keep your voice down.” Inari's icon waved, and his heart leaped. Sarn slid between the dueling statues then stopped when he realized she had waved to her friend, not to him. Neither woman knew he was there.
As their icons moved into a dark space not included on his head map, Sarn regarded a door now triple starred in his memory. The scent of fresh baked cookies made his mouth water and his stomach rumble, but he held back.
Two statues flanked her door. Both sat with their heads bowed, though one held an infant and the other a dying man. Gold circles fashioned out of lumir crowned all four statues’ heads. So this was where Inari lived.
Hearing footsteps, Sarn backtracked to an intersecting corridor then staggered to a stop when dizziness overcame him. What had he done? Inari was a married woman. Just knowing her address was a betrayal of Nolo and it made his conscience squirm. He had to delete her home from his map—but how? Places added themselves to his map all the time, but none ever fell off. There had to be an eraser somewhere inside his head.
Leaning against a wall, Sarn searched until a familiar icon appeared—Rat Woman’s beady-eyed spy. He pushed off the wall and staggered toward it as the rat icon grew and took on female proportions. Maybe Fate was about to provide some much-needed answers.
Sarn skidded around three more bends before slowing his mad dash. Nausea crashed over him, and he stumbled to a halt. Rat Woman was there alright, standing in an alcove. Her mirrored eyes fixed on him and turned sad.
“Stay back,” she hissed, brandishing the book. Shadows described a heart pierced by thorns on its plain cover, but that could be a trick of the lighting.
“Only if you’ll tell me what’s in that book. Why does it feel so foul?” Sarn propped himself against a wall and fought the urge to throw up.
“You know what it is—a book of black magic.”
“Why do you want it?”
His other magic surfaced and didn’t like what it saw. Unnatural, it commented as if the nausea stirring his empty belly wasn’t clue enough. His veins glowed a green verging on white making Sarn look even more freakish than usual.
“I don’t want it. I’d destroy it if I could. I am as beholden to it as you are to your master.”
“And he wants it.”
She nodded.
Sarn had a feeling he’d already met her master. It wasn’t Insect Man or Snake Woman since both had acted as if they were taking orders. What about Hadrovel’s doppelganger? Or the masked man at the bloodletting? That fellow was also familiar and foul. Was he the one masterminding this? Why did his heartbreak at the question? What did that traitorous organ know that he didn’t?
A translucent hand jutted out of the wall and seized Sarn’s wrist, freezing it. The ghost boy pulled with all its spectral might dragging Sarn away from Rat Woman.
“Let go of me!” Sarn struggled, and the fabric of his magic tore leaving glowing filaments to drift in his wake.
The ghost boy’s head poked through the wall and shook in a vigorous negation. Its eyes were saucer wide and terrified as it tugged harder.
“Who is your master and why does he want it?” Sarn yelled over his shoulder. He struggled to break the ghost’s numbing grip, but the bloodletting had weakened him.
The floor undulated. Was it moving? Sarn tripped as a reptilian head erupted from the floor followed by at least a hundred others. He fell flat on his belly with the wind knocked out of him and almost missed Rat Woman’s quiet reply.
“To finish what was begun.”
Before he could ask what she meant, the snakes converged and whipped together into a strange amalgamation of reptile and woman. A peel of sibilant-tinged laughter issued from her parted lips exposing inch long fangs.
Well, at least he knew where those blood-drinking snakes had gone. Bile crawled up Sarn’s throat at the unnatural creature stalking toward the backpedaling Rat Woman. It took all his concentration to keep from throwing up.
“Give me the book.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m tired of taking orders.” The snake woman lunged, but her target dropped to the
ground, and a horde of rats scurried away from her cloak.
“You bitch. You think he’ll reward you for this?” Snake woman raked the cloak with her claws until only gray ribbons remained. The book was gone. Somehow Rat Woman had spirited it away.
Get up damn it! Sarn tried, but his numb left arm refused to work. A familiar gray veil descended as a rat stopped inches from his face.
Stay away from the forest tonight. He thought Rat woman said, then her emissary raced into the shadows. A gray haze swallowed the ghost and the reptilian woman dissolving into a mass of wriggling snakes.
Sarn fought to remain conscious, but his body had taken all the punishment it could without respite. Fangs pierced his skin in multiple places, and his magic screamed. Or maybe he had. Oblivion took him as his body seized.
Sarn came to lying on his back looking up at a face shrouded in gray cloth. Shade, his son, abandoned—the nerve of his friend to sit there as if nothing had happened.
“I told you to stay away from me.”
Sarn rolled away from his friend toward a nice Litherian-carved monstrosity whose floral base offered plenty of handholds. With a firm grip on the warrior’s ankle, Sarn rose and leaned against the cold marble until the world ceased sloshing about.
“You’re hurt—” Shade said packing a wealth of meaning into those three words. His friend’s smoke ravaged voice raised the hairs on the back of Sarn's neck.
“How did you—?”
Oh no, not Shade, no—but he had to know. Sarn stepped closer to his seated friend and sniffed, receiving a lungful of sweat, urine, feces and the honeyed decay of an aliel eater. Backing away, Sarn shook his head.
"You were there?" Sarn pointed to Lord Joranth's private chamber. Had that flickering symbol been Shade’s?
"Aralore's back. You remember her, right?"
Sarn shook his head. Who was Aralore? "What are you talking about? I asked you a question. Were you there in the room with—when I—" but Sarn’s voice trailed off when the words jammed in his throat.
"I'd never hurt you." Shade wobbled to a stand.
Sarn studied his friend, taking in all the details he usually ignored—yes it could have been Shade. But why? A sick feeling erupted in the pit of his stomach. It always came down to greed. He had something everyone wanted. But when Sarn met his friend's dark eyes and searched them, he found no avarice there.
"Why are you looking at me like I'm the enemy?" Shade backed away. "What happened? I found you passed out. Are you hurt?”
Yes, but Sarn refused to think about Lord Joranth, the promise, and the whole bloodletting thing. Later he’d have to deal with it, but right now he had more important matters to attend to like a missing ghost child.
The specter had been there when he’d blacked out, but a quick glance confirmed it was gone. The terror in its young eyes tore at Sarn even in memory. How could he find a ghost? Well, his head map was a good place to start. Maybe it had acquired a fix.
"Did you see anyone else when you arrived?” Sarn dimmed his map so he could see Shade through its overlay.
“No, was someone else here when you—” Shade’s voice trailed off.
“Never mind.” Sarn resumed studying his map, but he saw no icon for the ghost. “What are you doing in this part of the stronghold? This is freemen’s territory."
Shade ignored the question and approached with worried eyes. “Did he hurt you?”
“How did you know he hurt me?”
But Shade didn’t need to answer. His friend’s dark eyes confessed it all, and that sick feeling in the pit of Sarn’s stomach blossomed into full on horror.
"You were there. How did you know what to do? Did you put him up to it?"
Shade continued with the head shaking. "It wasn't me."
But it was. The lie hung between them, exposed by the vial of aliel powder in his friend’s pocket. It was payment for helping Lord Joranth. To Sarn's sixth sense, the white powder was an energy sinkhole. But there was even more damning evidence than the drugs.
"Just like it wasn't you who abandoned my son earlier. Tell me another lie." Sarn scrubbed both hands over his face. Every time he made a friend jealousy destroyed the relationship. "I owe a sadist a favor because of you. And you can't admit you helped Joranth take something from me in exchange for drugs."
"It wasn't me."
"Yes Shade, it was. You saw what Hadrovel did to me. Who better than my best friend to betray me?" Laughter bubbled up, but Sarn tamped it back down.
Shade made another feeble attempt at a protest, but Sarn cut his friend off by holding up his hand. A vial flew out of Shade's pocket and inside it, a green liquid shined.
"It was you." Sarn threw the bottle at his friend and missed. The glass shattered against a statue's cuirass and his stolen magic dove into his upraised palm to rejoin its brethren.
"Next time Zaduke threatens to kill you, don't knock on my door. Stay away from me and mine." Turning on his heel, Sarn stalked away. He’d said his piece for now.
"But you don't mean it, Sarn?" Shade's voice broke on his name.
So did Sarn’s heart, until he hardened it and half-stumbled in his haste to escape. Repeated calls shoved the knife in deeper and twisted it. Six years of friendship had just ended in betrayal and lies and all for what—a vial of magic and drugs?
How far would Shade go for the next fix? Would his ex-friend report his son to Lord Joranth? What if his friend had already done so? Fear warred with anger until Sarn turned and punched a wall. Magic lit up his hand shielding it from the blow. He had to safeguard Ran from the person who had told him he had a son. It had all come full circle at last.
Sarn paused at a wall by a four-way intersection as a troubling thought struck him. Could it all boil down to drugs? He tapped a statue of an idealized woodsman while he examined that hypothesis for flaws. The statue’s glowing eyes glowered at Sarn, and he knew how aliel powder reached Mount Eredren. Someone hiked in with it. What better cover than to travel with a family?
His new hypothesis cast the murders in a whole new light. Had the ghost child died because of a drug deal gone wrong?
It was a place to start, but there had to be more to it than that. Rat Woman had mentioned black magic, and he believed her. Too many freaky things had happened. Could there be mages other than himself? He’d never met any, though he’d been in hiding since he was small. What could he do if a more powerful mage was somehow behind this? The question chilled him.
The ghost boy appeared, knocking Sarn from his thoughts. Black shackles bound the specter’s skinny ankles. It pointed an accusatory finger. Sarn turned and grimaced at his ex-best friend.
"Tell me you're all right, and I'll get out of your sight." Shade’s dark eyes implored Sarn.
Damn, not only had Shade fallen back on rhyming everything, but the bastard had followed him. “I’ll be okay no thanks to you. I just have to—” Sarn trailed off feeling the tug of promises he’d sworn. Pain stabbed his brow. Damn, his other masters were looking for him.
"But you're hurt." Shade pointed to the caterpillar of emerald light crawling out from under Sarn's sleeve.
Those three troublesome words almost made Sarn laugh. “I used to think life was pain but my son taught me otherwise.” He rolled up his sleeve and displayed a gash spanning from wrist to elbow. “This will heal but the rift between you and me won’t. Betrayal is a forever kind of offense.” Sarn ached to hug his son, to feel the boy’s smile and spend five minutes in the presence of someone who thought he could do no wrong. Another sharp jab reminded him of his priorities. His masters were waiting.
Sarn started as the ghost boy materialized between him and Shade with its little fists bared.
What the hell was going on? Sarn rubbed his temples. Why did the ghost think Shade was a threat? He could bench press Shade if so motivated.
Eam’meye erator, whispered a disembodied voice.
Was Shade involved in the murders? While he was at Lord Joranth’s mercy, Sarn had caug
ht a flash of a thirteen-pointed star in a circle. But his friend was a user, not a dealer. Sarn took an involuntary step backward.
“What the hell are you involved in?”
Shade didn’t answer. Shadows leaped over his friend onto the silently screaming ghost boy.
Sarn’s magic flared, and its light knocked the shadows back—all except for one tentacle. It caught hold of the chain binding the ghost and pulled.
Unnatural—cried his magic. It pushed Sarn away from the specter and its mysterious captor. What made those chains? Was he staring at death’s shadow? Why did it stand with his ex-best friend?
“What have you done, Shade? Answer me.”
But Shade was gone. Only shadows remained where his ex-friend had stood. Frost-rimmed the nearby statues just like it had in the forest the night he’d found those bodies. The frigid touch of a strange magic repelled Sarn, and he backed away.
The ghost slipped a little more into the darkness winching its chain. Its scared eyes pleaded for help. Sarn tried to catch hold of the terrified ghost, but his hands passed right through the specter. He kept trying and failing until captor and captive dissolved into a wall.
Sarn punched the carving of a mythic creature battling a battalion of spear-toting men. It was in his way. “Just hold on, okay? The pieces are falling into place. I just need a little more time. I’ll find a way to help you—I promise.”
And his vow bound him to that end. Sarn scanned the corridor uncertain what to do now. Could Shade be involved? Not the Shade who’d tried to shield him from Hadrovel’s cruelties. Not the Shade who’d bound his wounds and stolen food when he couldn’t.
But is that the Shade you’re dealing with?
Sarn just didn’t know. His map unfurled pointing frantic arrows at Jerlo’s icon on the move. He was out of time. Jerlo was searching for him.
Sarn had to slow as he hit the sculpture-choked north-south transept or risk an injury. Dodging marble weapons raised in combat, he wove through the gauntlet until a statue caught the edge of his cloak. Sarn halted to free the still damp thing. As he straightened, the entwined circles carved into the statue’s base caught his eye. They were tucked here and there, each rounded glyph different from the last. Was he staring at a remnant of an ancient writing system?
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