A City in Ruin (The Dark Sorcerer Book 2)

by D. K. Holmberg

  Changing enchantments could often have disastrous effects. It was possible to modify them, but only if you knew exactly what it was that had gone into the creation of the enchantment in the first place; if you didn’t, then trying to modify it, altering the intent of the enchantment, could often lead to unintended consequences. It was the reason most sorcerers simply started anew. Modifying another sorcerer’s enchantment meant playing with magic they may not know the full intention behind.

  Altering a dular’s enchantment was even more dangerous. And a volar . . .

  “When you’re back, I can go ask around with my dular contacts about what happened. I’m still trying to get better connected within the city, but the dular”—he grinned at Jayna as he said the term—“have a bit of a community within the city. We all want to work together.”

  Jayna shared a look with Eva, who simply stared off into the distance, an unreadable expression on her face. “That would be great,” she said to him.

  She motioned for Eva to follow, and Jayna grabbed her plain brown cloak, slung it over her shoulders, and headed out of the home.

  Eva followed more slowly, standing for a moment, staggering. She was still intoxicated, but Jayna had to hope that even intoxicated, Eva would be able to stay with her. There wasn’t a guarantee she could do it. She had been around Eva enough times to know that she often managed to survive—and even thrive—when others would not, but in this case, Jayna worried about how much Eva had been drinking the night before. As far as she could tell, Eva hadn’t even slept.

  “Are you sure you can do this?”

  Eva stormed past her. “I could ask the same to you.”

  “I just want to make sure you aren’t going to do anything foolish.”

  Eva glanced over her shoulder. She flicked her gaze down to the dragon stone ring before looking up at Jayna again. “You mean as foolish as somebody who made a commitment to a kind of power she didn't understand?”

  “Something like that,” Jayna said, tempted to stick her tongue out at Eva.

  “I would never dare.”

  Jayna just sighed, shaking her head. She didn’t want to get into an argument with Eva, but at the same time, she felt as if that was what Eva wanted. Maybe it was what Eva felt she deserved.

  She had to be careful. She knew Eva had suffered before the two of them had crossed paths, and Jayna wanted to help her. She certainly didn’t want to be the reason Eva continued to suffer.

  The day was bright and the air thick with humidity. Though Jayna had been here for many months now, she still hadn’t fully adjusted to the heaviness in the air, the humidity with each breath she took, and she hadn’t come to grips with just how challenging it was for her to simply move around the streets.

  She looked over to Eva, who strode forward, moving quickly and easily, not at all struggling with the humidity the way Jayna did.

  “Where would you have us start?” Jayna asked.

  “Now you’re asking me?” Eva blinked and a faint trail of smoke drifted from her mouth, which Jayna considered a minor victory. It meant she had tried to sober up.

  “You’re the one who’s been moving around the city. I figured you would know something.”

  “There are a few places we could visit,” Eva stated.

  “Such as Master Raollet’s?”

  Eva’s brow darkened for a moment as she looked over to her; there was a bit of clarity in her eyes, as if she had suddenly pushed away all the intoxication, but then it returned. “I don’t think we want to involve Master Raollet unless we need to. He is a potential resource though, so if it comes down to it, we may need to involve him.”

  Eva’s mentioning Raollet fit with Jayna’s own concern. Eva wasn’t necessarily concerned about going to visit him, but she didn’t want to involve him quite yet. He should be relatively easy to find. Especially if Eva decided to go looking for him.

  “You think he could have been the one who attacked us?”

  “Us?” Eva asked.

  Jayna shook her head. “Fine. Me. You think he is capable of this?”

  “I don’t know.” She bit her lip, and a hint of smoke trailed from her mouth, streaming around her neck and heading down toward her legs, swirling out and around the street. “I would say no, but you did attack him twice.”

  “I was only looking for information.”

  “Not the first time. The first time you were looking for fairy fingers.”

  “And I wasn’t about to have him cut off the fingers of any El’aras.”

  Eva said nothing as they stormed through the city, navigating through narrow streets, turning down an even tighter street, the thick moss along the walls practically bulging outward and further narrowing the street, the air pungent with its aroma. Soon, Eva stopped in front of a small stone building. There was little more than a slim doorway here, slick with moisture and heavily oiled.

  “What is this place?” Jayna asked.

  “This is a place where I’ve found some information in our time here. I doubt he will have much of use, but it’s a good place to start, especially since I also doubt he would attack us.”

  “You doubt it?”

  “It’s possible he would choose to challenge you, depending on what he’s heard. The vendors like this are all part of a tight-knit group. They’re competitors, but they also work together. If you attack one, they view it as an attack on each other.”

  Great. Just what she needed. Here she thought she could slip through the city, asking a few questions from some of the enchantment vendors, but maybe that was her mistake.

  It was easier when she’d been chasing information about the Celebrants of Asymorn. The Celebrants were challenging, dark magic users, but at the same time, there was something easy about chasing that kind of power. She knew what she had to do then.

  She glanced over at Eva, who stood with her hand over the door. A bit of smoke trailed out of her mouth, the kind of power she had been seeing more often lately from Eva.

  “Go on,” Jayna said.

  Eva tapped on the door, then breathed out, letting a streamer of smoke come from her mouth. It flowed down from her and trailed outward, looping out and away from Eva, swirling around Jayna as well. It was an odd use of her magic, but who was Jayna to argue with her at this point?

  Eva pushed open the door.

  Jayna expected a darkened shop, much like Master Raollet’s, but as she stepped inside, it was brightly illuminated. Lanterns and enchanted light filled the entirety of the shop, leaving everything with a soft, warm sort of glow.

  She smiled to herself as she followed Eva in.

  It was a cluttered mess. Rows of shelves lined the walls with another shelving unit running down the center of the store. Enchantments were stacked upon each of the shelves along with other items, things of strange origin. There was a stack of folded, dust-covered cloth in one section, but as she ran her hand over the surface of the cloth, it felt smooth and silky, the texture of the fabric far nicer than anything she had detected before. A large ceramic jar rested on the floor in front of one of the shelves, and as she reached for the top, Eva tapped her on the wrist, shaking her head. That, too, was covered in a layer of dust. As Jayna looked around, she realized that dust coated everything in the shop. It was filled with items, but it obviously didn’t sell many of them.

  That was odd.

  Odder still was the man sitting on a stool at the back of the shop. He was propped up high, with ears that were covered in thick hair and angled slightly forward. He had a bushy gray beard and long silver hair flowing down and draping over his shoulders. He was short—possibly the shortest man Jayna had ever seen—but his position on his massive stool gave him a vantage to overlook everything in the shop.

  Eva strode toward him. “Telluminder.”

  “Eva Rekayth. I haven’t seen you that often these days. What brings you to my shop? And bringing a guest?” The man swung his gaze to Jayna. He had a sharp, staccato way of speaking, and his voice was thick,
hoarse, as if his tongue was swollen. “Who might this be?”

  “This is Jayna Aguelon.”

  “Ah. I have heard of her.”

  Jayna tensed, twisting the dragon stone ring on her finger. His having heard of her suggested that word of her attack upon Master Raollet’s shop had spread.

  Which meant they might be in for a fight here.

  Jayna didn’t want to fight inside of a place like this—one filled with enchantments with various unusual purposes. She had no idea what exactly might be here, but she suspected that anything here could explode in a dangerous way.

  As she looked around the shop, turning her attention back to the shop owner, she frowned at him. “What have you heard about me?”

  “I have heard that you pursue items of unique potential.”

  Jayna relaxed, but only for a moment.

  “And I have heard that you disrupted Raollet’s business.”

  “I didn’t mean to—”

  The shop owner started to cackle, and he leaned forward, pounding on the counter with a gnarled fist. “That old bastard probably got what he deserved. He thinks to trade in questionable items the way he does, and thinks to protect his sources.”

  “Do you?” Eva asked.

  “You know I would reveal my sources of suppliers if you were only to ask.”

  “And if I were to ask . . . ?” Eva said.

  Jayna realized something. For all of the impression she’d had that Eva had still been intoxicated on the walk over, and for everything she’d seen, she noticed that the moment they had walked inside, the moment Eva had begun to breathe out streamers of smoke, something had changed for her. She wasn’t releasing quite as much smoke as she had earlier, though it was there. Eva’s entire posture had shifted, her entire demeanor.

  Jayna focused on the shop owner. There was something strange and unusual about him—and it wasn’t just the way he spoke or his appearance. She had a feeling about him, and she couldn't quite place it. Maybe that was intentional.

  “I need to know if you have any information about a particularly dangerous enchantment, Telluminder.”

  “There are many enchantments that are particularly dangerous. Which one might this be?”

  Eva pressed her lips together in a tight smile. “This is one that is used to create fisen fire.”

  Jayna looked over to Eva. She hadn’t heard that term before, but there was something about it that struck her as familiar. Was that what Eva feared?

  “You know such a thing would be nearly impossible,” the shop owner said. “Not only is it difficult to create, but it’s difficult to contain. The sheer nature of fisen fire is that it burns through anything. It would even burn through any enchantment designed to contain it.”

  “Be that as it may, I have seen it,” she said.

  “If you’ve seen it, then I would very much like to have a chance to study it.”

  His eyes had gone wide, giving him an even stranger appearance.

  Eva pulled something out of her pocket and set it on the counter. It was the charred remains of the other enchantment. “You can explore this all you want, but you will find there is very little you can discover from it. This was what we found when they attacked.”

  “When they attacked?” He frowned, glancing over to Eva and then to Jayna. “Who might they be?”

  “That’s what we seek to learn.”

  The shop owner lifted the enchantment carefully, holding it up to the light. As he twisted it slowly, Jayna noticed there were streaks of color within it, strands of pink working along the length of it, that she hadn’t seen before.

  “I see,” Telluminder said, twisting the enchantment from side to side, tipping his head as he studied it. “There is an element of heat within it, but it’s a cold sort of heat.”

  “Fisen fire,” Eva said.

  “Perhaps, but it might be something else.”

  He hopped off his stool and darted around the counter.

  Jayna had thought he was short, and he was. He barely came up to her waist, and he had a large head, almost impossibly large compared to the rest of his body. She marveled at the fact that his body managed to hold his head upright. He headed down a row of shelves, stopping in front of one. He leaned forward on his toes as he reached into the shelf, plucked something off of it, then turned it and held it up to the light, much like he had with the enchantment.

  “What do you think of this, Eva?”

  Eva crouched down next to the shop owner. It was a strange thing to see them interacting—as if she knew this man better than she should, considering the time she’d spent within Nelar.

  Then again, Jayna didn’t see where Eva slipped off to most of the time. While she was hunting for the Celebrants of Asymorn, or even before that when she had been searching for other dark magic, she had never known where Eva had gone. There was no reason for Jayna to track her, to figure out what she was doing, and even now, Jayna didn’t particularly care, though she was curious.

  Eva had her own unique sources. Jayna didn't know with any certainty, but she suspected Eva used her magic to influence her sources, at least to speak to her. Eva would never acknowledge that though. She didn't see her trying to use magic on Telluminder, so maybe she didn't always do that.

  “This is not the same,” Eva said, tracing her finger along the surface of the curved enchantment that the storeowner held out. It was smooth, with a hint of pinkish coloration to it and a bit of smoke trailed off of Eva’s hand as she touched it. Not so much that Jayna could tell what Eva was doing with her smoke, though to be honest, Jayna could rarely tell what Eva did with her smoke. There was a slight tension on Jayna’s skin, as if she were standing out in the sun for too long, that suggested the type of power Eva used.

  “Not the same, but the design elements are similar.”

  Eva grabbed the enchantment, handing it over to Jayna, who took it, held it out, and frowned.

  “What do you want me to do with it?”

  “Probe it.”

  “Probe it?”

  “You probed the other one, so probe this one.”

  “You didn’t let me probe the other one. You were afraid of me doing so.”

  “It’s not that I was afraid of you doing it,” Eva snapped. “I was afraid of you releasing power I was going to have to deal with.”

  Jayna shook her head. “I'm not trying to make you deal with anything. I know you don't like getting involved unless you choose to.” She tried to pick her words carefully, but felt herself stumbling over what to say.

  “It's not that I won't get involved,” Eva muttered.

  Jayna opened her mouth, but clamped her mouth shut as she saw the dark look in Eva's eyes. Jayna wanted to say something about the reason she suspected Eva didn't want to get involved and how it tied into learning about her lost memories.

  “Just probe it,” Eva said, with a little less force than before.

  Jayna took the enchantment, and she began to push power into it.

  She didn’t try to activate it. That wasn’t what she wanted, especially since if she were to do that, it would potentially trigger it and she would spend the power trapped within it. At the same time, she knew how to probe an enchantment, having first learned how to do so at the Academy, and having mastered it since then. There were ways of detecting the kinds of power and magic that were trapped inside these enchantments, and Jayna used her sorcery to trace that energy now, searching to uncover just what it was that this enchantment might do.

  There was something within the enchantment that was similar to the other one, but not the same.

  “No,” she said.

  “No?” Eva asked.

  “The type of power within this is different from the other one.” Jayna squeezed the enchantment, holding on to the power within it, and she could feel the energy trailing out, but she also recognized there was something else within it. This enchantment created fire, but it didn’t create the same kind of fire as the other one. It was warm to b
egin with, whereas the magical fire—fisen fire, if that’s what it was—had a cold quality to it, some aspect to it that was far different from anything she’d encountered before. It was what had left her thinking it was a dark magic, the kind of power she would love to understand so she could know how to counter it.

  “Not the same, then,” Telluminder said. He tottered over to Jayna, grabbed the enchantment, then put it back on the shelf. “I don’t have anything else to help you with.”

  “Do you know anybody who might?”

  “If you believe it to be fisen fire, you aren’t going to find that anywhere in the city. I’m afraid there are no shops that carry anything like that.” His gaze drifted to the counter where the charred remains of the enchantment rested. “If you wouldn’t mind, I would appreciate the opportunity to further examine it.”

  “When we are finished,” Eva said.

  “Of course,” Telluminder said. “I merely wanted to know if I could have a chance to investigate further. For educational purposes, of course.”

  Eva sniffed, and a bit of smoke drifted from her nostrils. “Of course.” She grabbed the charred remains of the enchantment and headed toward the storefront.

  “I would caution you,” Telluminder said. “I hear Raollet is quite upset about what has taken place. I wouldn’t put it past him to target you himself.”

  Jayna grunted. “He's already targeted us. But does he even have that kind of enchantment?”

  “Even if he did, he would never use it against you. It would be too valuable. He would much rather sell it. Why waste something he could earn considerable money on?” He flashed a smile. “Especially when there are many other ways he could target you.”

  She stared at him, waiting for him to expand on what he said, but he didn’t.

  Finally, she followed Eva out of the shop.

  “That was not useful.”

  “It was useful enough. We know there would not be an enchantment like that found within the city.”

  “Only that’s not true,” Jayna said. “Obviously, enchantments like this do exist in the city.”