“There’s a lesson in this, dear,” Dormael said. “Do you realize what happened?”
“I…think so,” Bethany shrugged, “but I’m not sure.”
“What do you think happened?”
“I looked away,” Bethany said. “I stopped paying attention.”
“That’s part of it,” D’Jenn nodded. “Even more important, though—you got excited.”
“Excited?” Bethany asked.
“Yes,” D’Jenn said. “When you saw the rock, and you realized that you were using your magic correctly for the first time, you got excited. It’s normal—but remember what we told you about emotions and magic?”
“Emotions affect magic,” she said.
“And how do we keep that from happening?”
“We have to keep our emotions quiet and our minds clear,” Bethany replied, smiling.
“And how do we control our emotions? How do we keep our minds clear?” D’Jenn asked.
“Meditation,” Bethany sighed, deflating.
“Get to it, then,” Dormael said, hoisting her up by the shoulders and setting her on her feet. “And don’t roll your eyes, love. It’s rude.”
Bethany hugged both of them around the neck before skipping across the hall to the room she shared with Shawna. Dormael sighed in her wake and rose from his seat on the floor, plucking the stone up into the grip of his Kai. His face was still smarting, and his mouth was watering for a drink of something with a kick.
“She’s progressing quite well,” D’Jenn said.
“Quickly, for one so young,” Dormael agreed. “At her age I could barely keep my mind clear enough to sense my Kai, let alone play Flying Rock.” The exercise was a staple at the Conclave, and was among the first games that initiates played in order to learn to use their gifts. As far as using magic went, holding things in a physical grasp was considered one of the simplest types of evocative spells.
“Indeed. What do you say to a drink?” D’Jenn asked.
“Nothing, you drink it,” Dormael replied.
“That wasn’t funny, coz.”
“No?”
“No. In fact, now I don’t even want to have a drink with you.”
“You’re a liar.”
“And you’re a bastard for making that joke. That was terrible,” D’Jenn grumbled.
He turned and made his way out into the hall, and beckoned Dormael to follow. They went through the narrow hall and down into the common room, which was only sparsely populated by drinking patrons. It was just as well—D’Jenn had chosen the Kneeling Mare by virtue of its being out-of-the-way. They sought a table in the corner of the room, far from other people, and sat down to have a quiet drink.
“Where did Seylia go?” D’Jenn asked, giving Dormael an odd look. “Did Shawna kill her and stuff her body down a well somewhere?”
“The gods only know with her,” Dormael shrugged. “You know how she is. Here one moment, gone the next.”
He suspected that Seylia had slipped away during Bethany’s lessons. Something in the way she’d smiled at him while they had retired upstairs had told him that she would be gone. It was Seylia’s way—blowing into his life for a few short moments, and leaving again in the same fashion. She had learned to care for herself long before crossing his path, so Dormael never worried much about where she went. Seylia was her own woman. He would see her again, until the day that he didn’t.
“At least I won’t have to listen to her trying to get under Shawna’s skin,” D’Jenn said. “I was starting to think that if I had to listen to one more back-handed comment in a sickly sweet tone of voice, I’d set all the hilltops in Soirus-Gamerit aflame.”
“Indeed,” Dormael agreed. “Things should get a bit quieter.”
“How’s your face?” D’Jenn asked.
“It hurts,” Dormael smiled. “I’ve had worse, though. It’s not broken, thank the gods. Just swollen to the Six Hells.”
“Next time you should keep a tighter reign over Seylia.”
“Should I?” Dormael asked. “As if I could control what that woman does, or says. As if anyone could. Besides, why do I have to take responsibility for her?”
“Because you were the one crawling into her pants, that’s why,” D’Jenn said. “Bethany and I had to listen to the aftermath of your little love triangle.”
“It’s not a triangle, D’Jenn,” Dormael sighed. “I told you, nothing has happened between Shawna and I.”
“Yet,” D’Jenn said.
“What?”
“Yet, Dormael,” D’Jenn smiled. “Nothing has happened yet.”
“Fuck yourself,” Dormael said, but he couldn’t keep a laugh from bubbling to the surface. D’Jenn winked at him, and called the serving girl over to order another round of drinks.
“You should have a talk with Shawna. Find out why she punched you,” D’Jenn said after a long silence.
“I’ve been thinking the same thing,” Dormael sighed. He knew why she had hit him, though. Now that Seylia was gone and he was able to turn his thoughts to the past few days, he cringed at the thought of how he had treated Shawna. He probably should have told Seylia to keep her bloody mouth shut, but it was a simple thing to see folly in hindsight.
“Good luck with that, coz,” D’Jenn said. “Just warn me before it happens so I don’t have to listen to the two of you whine about your feelings for half the night.”
Dormael snorted in reply, and tapped his cup against the one D’Jenn offered in toast.
They let another round of drinks pass in silence. Dormael sat back and listened to the soft murmur of voices in the room, the tinkle of dinnerware, and scattered bits of laughter. He opened his Kai and listened to the song of the world through his magic, letting his senses float through the ether. People burned in a wizard’s magical senses—at least they did to Dormael. Any living thing was like a beacon of light, its intensity varying, depending on whether that thing was a clover, or a person.
Emotions could sometimes manifest themselves to a wizard who listened for them, and people were one of Dormael’s favorite subjects upon which to meditate. If a person was distressed, they played discordant notes back to his Kai. Young couples in love practically bubbled with warm tones, and the insane sounded erratic. Dormael sometimes listened to the people around him when he was resting—it had become something of an unconscious habit.
He sensed it when a man entered the room who felt different than the other patrons. He was alert, watchful, and filled with something that Dormael could only describe as suspicion. Opening his eyes, he watched the man—a figure in a bulky winter cloak, the hilt of a sword peeking from the edge—make his way across the other side of the common room. He sat with another man, who appeared to have been waiting for him, and bent his ear for a close conversation.
Dormael would have turned his attention elsewhere, but something about the man bugged him. He wasn’t above a little eavesdropping when it suited him, anyway, so he bent his Kai to listen. He closed his eyes and sought the men in his magical senses, sinking down into his own mind just low enough so that their words tumbled across the ether and resonated with his Kai.
“…the description.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m telling you, I saw the girl earlier. Red-head. Real nice-looking, too.”
“Very well. When did they arrive?”
“Earlier, I don’t fucking know. They’re here now. Renald said you’d pay. Was he jamming me up?”
“He wasn’t. My organization always rewards those that do the work of the Clever One.”
Dormael got the distinct impression that money changed hands.
“Thanks.”
“Thank the Clever One.”
“Yes, yes, the Clever One, of course. Don’t get up and walk out with me. I don’t want to be seen out and about with one of you.”
“Very well.”
Dormael opened his eyes, and watched the second man scuttle to the door, shooting a glance over his should
er at Dormael and D’Jenn’s table. The first man—the one with the sword—still sat at the table with his back to them. Dormael looked around, but he could see no one else in the room that looked suspicious.
“We’ve got company,” he said.
“Company?” D’Jenn asked.
“Look toward the opposite wall of the room. There’s a man sitting down in a heavy cloak with his back to us. I think he’s a Cultist.”
“A Cultist?” D’Jenn said. “Is this some sort of joke?”
“I just listened to him pay a man for information about us,” Dormael said. “He made overtures to ‘the Clever One’. I’m sure you know what that means.”
D’Jenn gave Dormael a surprised look, then glanced in the direction of the Cultist.
“What is the bloody Cult of Aeglar doing in Gameritus?” D’Jenn asked.
“I don’t think they’re popular,” Dormael muttered. “He mentioned Shawna, D’Jenn. Why in the Six Hells would a Cultist have information about Shawna?”
D’Jenn peered across the room at the man, but made no attempt to answer.
The Cult of Aeglar was a religious order dedicated to the eradication of magic on Eldath. They worshiped Aeglar, the Trickster—whom they called the Clever One. The Cult was quite popular in most of Alderak, where a strong anti-magic sentiment had always found fertile ground. In the Sevenlands, though, they were almost universally reviled. He was shocked to find them here.
“Gods, coz,” D’Jenn said. “However they know about us, it isn’t good.”
“We’d be doing all of Eldath a service if we killed him,” Dormael said. “Could probably get away with it, too.”
“We have to do it quiet,” D’Jenn said. “Conclave or not, we’ll get arrested for murder in the streets.”
“He’ll probably have someone watching the inn.”
“Probably.”
“Let’s lead them outside, then. We can have a friendly chat down a dark alley,” Dormael smiled.
“Let me finish my ale,” D’Jenn sighed.
A few moments later, they rose and drew their cloaks about their shoulders, then headed for the door. Dormael felt the Cultist’s eyes on them the entire time, like a predator watching a herd animal walk across a field. When they reached the door, Dormael turned and caught the Cultist’s eyes.
With a smile, he gave the man a wink. He savored the bastard’s surprise for just a moment, then headed out into the cold. Dormael was sure the man would follow.
Clouds kept the moon and stars behind a dark veil, and the windy streets of Gameritus were awash in shadow. The darkness was kept at bay by islands of flickering lantern-light, but these were few and far between. Rain began to patter to the cobblestones underfoot, and Dormael hunched his shoulders against the cold. He followed his cousin down an avenue headed for one of the poorer districts of the city, where the beggars and thieves had run of the ruins.
He spotted the man behind them, passing like a wraith through a bubble of orange lantern-light. He was staying far enough back to keep from arousing suspicion from passersby, few as they were, but he was definitely following them. Dormael felt sure there was another, but he didn’t see him. His magical senses returned nothing.
“I only see one,” Dormael muttered. “Well behind us.”
D’Jenn gave an imperceptible nod. “Let’s have a talk with him. Be ready.”
Dormael nodded, but D’Jenn was already moving. He rushed to their right, heading down a narrow alley toward one of the ruined sections of Gameritus. Dormael sprinted after him, opening his magical senses to help him stay on his feet during the mad rush through the darkness. They made it to an intersection, where the narrow street branched to either side. D’Jenn skidded to a halt around the corner, and put his back against the side of the building. Dormael went to the opposite side.
Tingling along his arms warned him to D’Jenn’s use of magic, and he watched as his cousin scrambled up the side of the building, using the same spell that had allowed them to climb the walls of Castle Ferolan. Dormael, for his part, pulled the shadows around him, and edged away from the mouth of the alleyway. One man wasn’t enough to send him up a wall.
Running steps echoed around a corner, and Dormael tensed his magic for the confrontation. He readied a simple strike with his Kai—a smack of physical force that would jar the man against the wall, knocking him senseless. Dormael smiled as the man’s blurry form appeared around the edge of the wall, and he reached out to slap the Cultist aside.
Something, however, went wrong.
There was a sound like a quiet thunderclap, and Dormael’s magic violently unraveled. He felt as if his mind had been slapped, and spots swam across his vision. As the energies he had gathered with his power eked back out into the world, strange things began to happen. Dormael was thrown from his feet to tumble into a stack of crates nearby, and cracks appeared in the walls to either side of the Cultist.
The Cult member stood unharmed.
Dormael tried to gather his wits, but his mind felt like it had been packed with wool. He tried to reach for one of the daggers that he kept stashed about his person, but fumbled with it when his hands refused to obey him. The feeling was fading quickly, but not quickly enough to save him.
He heard the steel whisper from the man’s sheath as he drew his sword.
Dormael tossed himself backwards, narrowly avoiding a cut that would have taken him in the side of the throat. He scrambled away, trying to find purchase on the rain-slick street, but the trash scattered in the alleyway prevented him from getting very far. The man feinted at him as he tried to gain his feet, and Dormael abandoned an attempt to stand as the blade sought his face.
Dormael felt grim about his chances. He grasped again and again for his Kai, but it slid through his mental fingers like oil. It would not come to his call.
If a dagger is all I’ve got, he thought, then so be it.
Shawna’s training kicked in, and Dormael rolled toward the man’s legs instead of away from him. His sudden attack caught the man off-balance, and he hesitated. That hesitation cost him as Dormael threw all his weight into a straight kick aimed at the inside of the man’s knee. He felt his boot hit soft flesh, and the edge of something made of steel. The man cried out in pain as the joint buckled, and he fell to the dirty stones underfoot.
Dormael brought his knee to his chest and pulled his dagger free of his boot. He clenched it point-down as he rolled to his feet, but was forced away from the Cultist as the man swung his sword wildly from his back. The Cultist was no amateur, and in the few seconds that Dormael took to get out of his sword-reach, the man rolled over in the opposite direction and struggled back to his feet. The two of them stood for a tense moment—Dormael crouched with his dagger, the Cultist moving his sword in a low arc.
Suddenly there was a crash, and the Cultist went down in a cacophony of splintered wood as two crates were whipped from the ground and pounded into him. His sword tumbled across the alleyway as he crumpled to the ground. He didn’t get up.
Dormael let out an excited breath and straightened from his crouch. His head still felt tingly from the reaction with his magic, and his face was hurting from the effort of all the grimacing he’d done in the course of the fight. Schooling his breathing into something manageable, he stuffed the dagger back into his boot.
“He almost had me,” Dormael said. “Somehow the bastard Splintered my spell, D’Jenn.”
“I saw that,” D’Jenn nodded. “I was waiting for him to use magic on you, but he didn’t.”
Splintering was usually something that only happened in a fight between two wizards. It was a technique for defeating the spells of other wizards by infiltrating their power with enough force to scatter the energies involved—that was the official definition, anyway. Dormael had always thought of it like bursting a bubble with a needle.
When magic was Splintered, it left the victim in a dazed state. Most Warlocks trained to narrow this dazed period to almost nothing, but it ha
d been a long time since Dormael had encountered the technique. Not only did it leave the wizard numb, but random things also tended to happen when errant magical energies unleashed themselves on the world. Magic, when unfettered by the bounds of a wizard’s willpower, could do frightening things.
Splintering was dangerous.
“Cultists hate magic,” Dormael said, “so how did one Splinter my spell? No one outside of magical circles would even know what Splintering is.”
“It’s troubling,” D’Jenn said. He walked over and nudged the man with his foot, but the Cultist didn’t move. D’Jenn rolled the man over and regarded his empty gaze, indicating to Dormael that he was dead. Dormael nodded back, but watched with interest while his cousin began to rifle through the man’s belongings.
“He’s wearing some sort of armor,” D’Jenn said. He reached around the man’s arm and unbuckled a bracer, fishing the thing out around the Cultist’s thick winter clothing. Summoning a low magical light, he held the bracer up so Dormael could see.
“Pretty,” Dormael remarked. The thing was made of steel, but it had lines of brass inlaid in swirling patterns over the metal. It put off a strange echo in his Kai, but it also pulled on his magic like a subtle tide. Dormael regarded the thing for a moment through his magical senses, but couldn’t make much of it. He had never seen anything like it.
“You think this is what Splintered my magic?” Dormael asked. “I’ve never heard of an infused item with the ability to do that.”
“And because you’ve never seen it, it must not exist?” D’Jenn said. “I’ll take this little piece with me. We can learn more about it as we head north.”
“I wish you hadn’t killed him. Did you find the other one? I assumed you were moving around to out-flank anyone trying to out-flank us, and that’s why you took so bloody long to come to my aid,” Dormael said.
D’Jenn let out an exasperated breath. “Bastard got away. He spotted me before I saw him, and scuttled away like a cockroach. I lost him in the alleys, and didn’t want to get too far from you.”
The Seven Signs: Three Book Collection Page 47