The Black Knife

by Christopher Nuttall

  “Lawless,” Eric said, with great satisfaction. He grinned and injected drama into his tone, declaiming to his audience. “It is the most lawless city on Touched. Herod might be able to get mercenaries to come after us here, but he won’t get any help from the city’s council. They don’t take sides in political disputes. It's bad for business to take sides.”

  Hind recalled the history of Lawless as they walked down the road to the city. Centuries ago, it had belonged to a nasty warlord who had had a habit of putting people to death for his amusement, until he’d killed the husband of a young woman. The woman had thrown acid in his eyes and killed him, somehow inheriting control of the city in the process. She hadn’t held it for long and, after she had been assassinated, the new ruler had declared Lawless a free city. A surprising number of magic-users had made Lawless their home, making it hard – if not impossible – for the local Lord to recover his lost city. Grudgingly, he'd accepted the declaration of independence, something made easier by the fact that Lawless had been a dying city and had no way to become a threat to his rule. The new ruler had thrown open the gates of the city to anyone who wanted a place to live and work with minimal laws, attracting thousands of criminals, mercenaries and rogue magicians. Lawless was now the capital city of crime throughout the Empire and while successive Emperors had sworn to wipe out the city, none of them ever had. It was just too useful to have around. Political enemies could make secret meetings within Lawless and strike bargains that could never – and would never – see the light of day.

  She kept a close eye on Branet and her money belt as they reached the main road and walked towards the gates. Unlike several other free cities, none of the visitors were being searched – or even being made to pass through wards – before they entered, even though they were being watched by the City Guard. Lawless had, in a paradox that both amused and puzzled her, a City Guard that did keep order, if only when the truce between different criminal and political factions broke down. It might even make them more honest than many other City Guards; after all, the other Guardsmen were often tools of the City Councils.

  “We’ll find an inn and get some sleep,” Eric said, once they were inside the city. Hind had already spotted several street children eyeing the newcomers and considering trying to pickpocket them. There was a gasp of pain as Eric caught one tiny hand and squeezed it enough to hurt the would-be thief, before letting him run. Hind wondered if the City Guard would want a word with them, but Lawless wasn't that sort of city. The population took their chances and those who lost, lost. There was no real law in the city beyond what they made for themselves. “Come on.”

  No one blocked their way as they headed towards the nearest inn, one advertising food, drink and comfy beds. Hind wasn't sure if the adverts could be trusted, but she was really too tired to care, using her magic to keep herself upright. Branet would have fallen asleep if she hadn't been walking and watching her surroundings nervously. Bran had never taken her to Lawless. They entered the inn and Eric ordered a single large room, much to the innkeeper’s chagrin. From the look he gave Eric, he must have wondered just what Eric was doing with two women, even though he asked no questions. Hind checked the room, discovered that there were no wards to guarantee their privacy and created them, just before she collapsed on the bed and closed her eyes. Sleep took her before Eric could lie down beside her.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Eleanor looked over at Kuralla and lifted an eyebrow. The Oracle nodded and stood up, pulling her shirt and pants tightly around her. She looked more like a young serving wrench than an Oracle, but that was all to the good. Any guard who saw her wouldn't think much of it, even though Kuralla was probably the most important prisoner in the Golden Palace. Even Eleanor herself was less useful to Herod. It had taken her two days to work up the courage to escape and only a visit by a pair of sorceresses had convinced her to move. The two young ladies had politely, but firmly insisted on measuring her for the wedding gown. Eleanor had refused at first, leading them to threaten to put her under a spell until they had finished their work. Her cheeks burning, she had submitted to their ministrations and ended up determined to leave, whatever the risk.

  The wards seemed to shimmer around her as she stepped through them and checked the corridor, before beckoning Kuralla to follow her. The Oracle hadn't joined any of her midnight excursions, but she seemed perfectly familiar with the corridors, although she would have probably seen some of them in a vision. The thought made her smile as they slipped through the corridors and into the secret passages, following them down to the dungeons. She stopped just in time as she saw a young man standing outside the locked cells, contemplating the device he held in his hand. Magical wands were rare outside hedge witches and wizards – they served to focus magic, rather than generate it, and any halfway respecting magician learned how to do without one quickly – yet he was holding one as if he intended to use it. She opened her third eye and saw dark magic crackling around the wand.

  She held up a hand, motioned for Kuralla to stay back and stepped into the room. The man spun around to face her and started to raise the wand, but Eleanor’s spell hit him first. He shrank rapidly and became a tiny stone on the ground, glowing faintly with magical power. Eleanor kicked the stone into a corner – she doubted that it would last for very long, but long enough to get them out of the Golden Palace – and picked up the wand. It felt very cold and unpleasant in her hands.

  “Put that down,” Kuralla hissed, in alarm. “You don't know where that’s been!”

  Eleanor took a final look at the wand and dropped it on the ground. Kuralla kicked it into the opposite corner and watched as Eleanor struggled with the door, before opening it and slipping inside. Sir Pellaeon was still lying on his bench, but someone had been torturing him, leaving bloody scars all over his exposed chest. Eleanor felt her heart jump into her mouth, just before she started to undo the bonds holding him down. A moment later, he was slipping down the bench and onto the floor.

  “Don’t look so worried,” he said, with a mischievous wink. “It looks worse than it feels, believe me.”

  Eleanor studied the bloody scars and decided to believe him. “They were torturing you,” she said, in shock. Torture was rare on Touched, if only because there were easier ways to get information from an unwilling donor. “What did they want to know?”

  “Nothing,” Sir Pellaeon said, ruefully. Eleanor stared at him as he pulled himself to his feet, looking around for his shirt. “They didn't ask any questions, or demand answers; he was just...enjoying himself. I don’t even know if Herod gave the order to torture me or if he was doing it because he wanted to do it.”

  Eleanor considered, briefly, picking up the man-stone and demanding answers, before remembering that they didn't have time. If they were caught now, they wouldn't have a hope of escaping again. She caught Sir Pellaeon’s hand and dragged him with her back out of the cell and into the passageways, where she performed a brief introduction as they headed down into the hidden armoury. Sir Pellaeon paused long enough to pick up a new shirt and sword before they kept moving. Eleanor could feel the wards in the back of her mind as they came closer to the secret exit, feeling fear twisting within her like a hungry snake. Perhaps being married to Herod wouldn't be so bad...she shook her head angrily, cursing her own weakness. Even if Herod was the sweetest and kindest man in the world, marrying him would still be a betrayal of her father and brother...and her sister-in-law.

  They turned the corner and came face to face with the secret exit. “It’s time,” Sir Pellaeon told her. There was no fear or doubt in his voice, just absolute confidence. Eleanor wondered why he felt such confidence in her, for she knew that she wasn't up to the challenge, not really. Didn't he remember all of the mistakes she’d made while she was trying to learn how to be a Princess? Eleanor almost called it off, knowing that they were running a terrible risk, before she gathered her courage. Two people were depending on her.

  “I know,” she said. “K
uralla, do you...?”

  “I have faith in you,” the Oracle said. “I believe that you can do it.”

  Eleanor braced herself, ran through the spell in her mind and reached out to take their hands. If she was touching them, bare skin to bare skin, she could reach through most of the wards protecting them from rogue magic. Kuralla’s own powers gave her a certain level of protection, even though they felt odd to Eleanor’s touch. She didn't want to think about just how badly it could go wrong now. Even if everything else worked, she could accidentally cost Kuralla her powers. Or perhaps, she realised, the Oracle would consider that a blessing.

  “Gods be with us,” she breathed, and worked the spell.

  Human transfiguration was both simple and extremely complicated. It was easy because the magic could be trusted to take care of many of the details without precise supervision; indeed, precise supervision was more likely to cause harm to the victim. It was complicated because the caster had to remain focused on the spell, hard enough when transforming someone else, but harder still when the caster was trying to transform his or her own body. It wasn’t as dangerous as trying to use healing magic on your own body, but it was quite dangerous enough. Eleanor had been the victim of a pair of practical jokes where she’d been transformed into a cat or a rabbit – and she’d played her own jokes on some of her fellow students – but she had never had to work so complex a spell in her life.

  There was no pain – thank the gods, for pain would have destroyed her concentration – but her perspective shifted rapidly. A human was a massive creature compared to a rat, so as she shrank the corridor seemed to grow bigger. Her senses sharpened, for rats had better senses of smell and hearing than most humans and she was suddenly aware of the presence of other rats, who had been through the area recently. She found herself falling onto her arms, yet her arms were shifting and changing, becoming just like a rat would have...the ground rushed up to meet her and the spell faded away.

  She fought hard for concentration, but it was difficult to focus in the wave of new input from her senses. She sniffed the air and was suddenly very aware of the presence of a male rat, far too close to her. The human part of her nature realised that the male rat was Sir Pellaeon and he was a friend, not a lover; the rat part of her nature insisted that she should be presenting herself for him. She was halfway towards lowering herself so that he could mount her when another rat nipped her tail; Kuralla, who had somehow remained more focused, was warning her that they had to move. Sir Pellaeon ran out in front of her, racing down towards the wards, and both halves of her nature urged her to scamper after him. The wards buzzed around her, and she was afraid for a second that they had seen through her transformation, before they allowed her to run into the cool air.

  Something moved behind her and she saw a stream of rats following them. The rat in her told her that they meant her no good and she felt a wave of panic, sending her forward at a terrifying speed. The rats chased the three of them out of the Golden Palace, down towards the road and into the trees at breakneck speed, before they finally broke off and allowed them to escape. The rat part of Eleanor’s mind was confused by what had just happened, but the human side of her realised that the rats had known that they weren't real rats and had wanted to get rid of them. It had worked too. She saw Sir Pellaeon in the distance and scampered towards him, feeling the ratty part of her mind coming to the fore until she saw his eyes. He was trying to communicate with her and...

  Memory clicked and she focused her mind, concentrating on undoing the spell. For a horrifying moment, she struggled against the part of her mind that insisted that she was a rat, before something snapped and she found herself billowing up suddenly back into human form. There were magicians, she had been warned, who had merged so completely with the animal side of their transformed bodies that they had forgotten that they had once been human and lost themselves to the animal. They had rarely been seen again. She opened her eyes to realise that she was crouching on all fours, with her hands and feet in a marsh. The rat part of her mind had had the last laugh.

  Sir Pellaeon looked over at her and she was experienced enough to sense the embarrassment on his face. She felt a hot flush that bothered her more than she wanted to admit, than she would ever consider admitting. The human side of her hadn't wanted him, human or rat, but the rat side of her hadn't cared about him being a good match, or even if he were handsome and caring. All that had mattered was allowing him to impregnate her and have kids, little baby rats. Absurdly, she found herself wondering what would have happened if they had and then she’d transformed back. Would the rat children have become human children in her womb? For some reason – she couldn't imagine why – there was a shortage of data on such matters at the Academy.

  “Stop blaming yourselves and start moving,” Kuralla snapped. The Oracle looked as muddy as Eleanor, although she was also trying to hide a smile. “It won’t be long until they realise that we've escaped and start coming after us.”

  “Yes, Respected Oracle,” Sir Pellaeon said. He stood up – he was as muddy as the two girls – and helped Eleanor to her feet. “Please forgive me, Your Highness, if I acted improperly...”

  “You were under the influence of a powerful spell intended to fool a ward,” Kuralla said, tartly. She pushed past them and started to march down the hill. “She is a growing girl who is sexually mature and who has been recently confronted with the prospect of losing her virginity to a monstrous shell of a man. The ratty parts of your minds claimed dominance for a few seconds, yet you were both strong enough to shake them off...with a little help, of course. If you had been struck by wild magic, you would still be rats and you would remain rats forever.”

  Her voice hardened. “Now...start moving.”

  Sir Pellaeon insisted on taking the lead as they made their way down the road towards the Golden City. There was only a half-moon in the air, but there was enough light to see the wrecked city and just how much damage Herod and his men had inflicted on the city Eleanor had loved ever since she was a girl. Her father would have been devastated. The Golden City had served as the test site for some of the more dangerous – at least to the nobility – social ideas and now it had been destroyed, by the nobility. Whatever had happened to Eric and Hind, Eleanor swore a mighty oath to herself that she would not let this pass unavenged.

  “Stay here,” Sir Pellaeon muttered, as they reached the edge of one of the encampments. She could see hundreds of fires, illuminating the faces of soldiers and hardened mercenaries, endlessly training for war. The Golden City had once only had the City Guard to keep the peace; now, there were thousands of soldiers gathered near the Golden Palace, preparing for...what? The thought made her smile. If Herod was preparing for war, someone else out there had to be fighting him. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

  Eleanor watched him go, wishing that she could go with him. The encampment wouldn't be a safe place for two young ladies, though; she could see prostitutes and enslaved girls plying their trade and being mistreated by many of the soldiers. She expected someone to shout an alarm at any moment, but nothing happened...and slowly she realised why. There were so many different units gathered at the Golden City that no one really knew who was on what side. Anyone who saw Sir Pellaeon, without his golden armour, wouldn't know him from just another common soldier or mercenary. She watched a game of chance being played between several mercenaries and sighed inwardly. What would happen, she wondered, when Herod finally decided on a target and ordered his army into action?

  “Blood and death, fire and suffering,” Kuralla breathed. Her eyes were vague and unfocused, suggesting that she was seeing a vision. Eleanor clamped a hand over her mouth to prevent her from being heard, but it was too late. “Watch out...”

  Eleanor looked up in alarm as three soldiers looked down at them. “Look at this,” the first one said. His breath stank of alcohol, which he breathed right into Eleanor’s face. “Two lovelies who had forgotten their way, but we will show them the way!”


  His two companions bellowed laughter, as if it had been the greatest joke in the world. One of them reached for Eleanor’s arm and pulled her to her feet, reaching out to stroke her breast through her shirt. The other reached for Kuralla, who cowered back. This only seemed to amuse him and he started to undo his pants. Bracing herself, Eleanor pulled herself to her full height and stared down her nose at her assailant.

  “Unhand me at once,” she ordered, in tones that she’d learned from her father. “I do not have the time to play with you.”

  The soldiers all laughed. The one who had groped her laughed loudest of all. Eleanor gathered her magic and knocked him to the ground, remembering the rat spell she’d used to escape the castle. Before he could escape – or she could think better of it – she worked the spell and transformed him into a rat. The other two jumped backwards as if the girls had suddenly caught fire and were far too hot to handle.