The Seven Signs: Three Book Collection

by D. W. Hawkins

  People began to gather around him, plaintive hands reaching down to help him stand. D’Jenn just waved them away with a growled curse, spitting thick, bloody effluvia onto the grass. He reached up to wipe his face, and his hand came away covered with wet blood. He could feel it streaming from his nose. D’Jenn climbed to his feet with a groan, waving away the plaintive hands for a second time.

  What in the Six Hells was that?

  For a moment, D’Jenn thought he had heard another song whistling out into the magic. Someone had sensed D’Jenn’s presence, and expelled him from the field with enough prejudice to serve as a warning. Whoever it was wanted Dormael alone.

  This was not good.

  D’Jenn walked up and leaned against the wall of the Conclave Proper, feeling the pitted rock under his hands, trying to use the sensation to ground himself and expel the nausea. He took one step forward, then another, regaining his balance. The cold rain helped to wake him, but his legs still felt shaky.

  There was no way he could manage another Mind Flight until his head stopped spinning, and by then it would be too late. Spitting one last time into the grass, D’Jenn set off in search of Allen. If he and Shawna disappeared, then Victus would notice. Allen, though, had spent most of his time here in leisure, ignored by the leadership. Besides—if Allen found out that Dormael was missing, and D’Jenn hadn’t let him know, there would be a fight.

  He could feel the incredulous stares of the onlookers on his back as he walked away.

  ***

  Dormael slipped on the wet cobblestones and slammed his right side into the corner of a wooden crate. The wind fled from his chest, and a fresh wave of coughing came upon him. For just a moment, there had been a strange resonance in the air, some sort of disorienting magical pulse. Dormael pushed himself to his feet.

  You can worry about that when you catch her.

  “Inera!” Dormael hacked around the coughing fit. He’d meant to shout, but it came out as more of a pitiful hiss. His feet barely managed to stay under him as he teetered down a side street.

  The back alleys of the East Market were no place to be caught out alone, drunk, and desperate, but seeing Inera again was too important to care. He was surrounded by dark, old wood, shuttered windows, lines criss-crossing the alleys, and detritus in the streets. Someone shouted a curse at him from one of the windows, but Dormael ignored it. He limped around another corner after the flash of a dark cloak caught his eye, and stopped short.

  She stood at a dead end, facing him from thirty or so links away. Behind her rose stacks of busted crates, rotten barrels, and piles of unnameable things. The rain came down with a vengeance, casting a hazy sheen over everything. Runnels of water falling from the rooftops of the old buildings around them splashed onto the stones of the street.

  Something about her manner made Dormael stop short of relief. The hood of her cloak was pulled up, hiding the wealth of hair that he remembered, shadowing everything but the lower part of her face. The cloak wrapped her body like a funeral shroud, leaving only her diminutive hands visible. She made no move toward him—only stood, waiting for him to speak.

  “Inera—Inera, that is you, isn’t it?” he ventured, taking a step toward her.

  “Dormael,” she breathed, as if he’d just walked in after a trip to the market.

  Her voice was light and airy, just as he remembered. Dormael felt something rush out of him at that moment, and his eyes began to tear up of their own accord. He tried to banish the lump that had grown in his throat. He took a tentative step toward her, as if she was a wild animal that would bolt at the slightest noise.

  “I searched for you,” he said. “I searched everywhere. I thought you were dead.”

  It sounded so stupid, so banal. He had lied awake many nights fantasizing on what he would say to her, if he ever discovered she was alive. He had never entertained the possibility, of course, but he had said the words in his mind over and over again. This wet, harried reunion had ripped those words away and replaced them with the diction of a fool.

  “Not dead,” Inera replied. “Never that.”

  You betrayed her. You stopped looking for her and gave her up for dead, yet here she stands. You betrayed her! You fool! You gods-damned, fucking fool!

  “How?” he asked, master of words that he was. “How did you…I mean, I thought the Galanians got to you. Can we go somewhere? Maybe get some food? There’s…there’s just so much to say.”

  His legs trembled.

  “Alright,” she said. “Let’s go somewhere more private.”

  Her hands, those delicate hands that he remembered so fondly, moved for the hood that covered her hair. She raised her chin, fixing her light brown eyes on him, giving him a smile that made him pause. She pushed the hood back from her hair.

  Dormael’s breath caught in his throat.

  The raven hair that he had so loved, a flowing ebony river around her shoulders that she’d always refused to cut, had gone stark white. Not gray as if with old age, but white like winter snow. Those fey eyes were haunted now, bloodshot and filled with terrible wisdom, something alien and jaded, a twisted remnant of how he remembered her. There was some sort of pattern on her forehead, a sinuous design that stretched from ear to ear. Dormael realized with a start that the glyph was a scar, and had been cut into her skin. Her forearms were also covered in scars of the same fashion, lines of glyphs or text that he didn’t recognize. She regarded him like a piglet she was sad that she had to kill, and then her eyes shot to the side.

  Dormael felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise in warning.

  He dove to his right as something whooshed through the air where his head had been, pain wracking his ill-used body. He tried to roll, but the combination of his injured body and the firewine foiled his effort. Instead, he went over one shoulder and ended up on his back, lacking the momentum to come to his feet again. Someone piled atop him as he reached for the knife in his boot, trapping his arm and pushing his shoulders back onto the ground.

  “Hurry, you fools!” Inera hissed.

  Dormael was shocked into immobility.

  His attacker used that moment of weakness to his advantage, and got his hands around Dormael’s throat. Dormael struggled for a moment, trying to work his chin down to shield his neck, and made a quick grab for the knife that the attacker had forgotten. He felt the hilt meet his hands like salvation, and yanked it from its sheath. He stabbed the man—one, two, three quick strikes—and the attacker released him, trying to shield himself from the knife. Dormael put it into the man’s armpit and tried to slide from beneath him, but the bastard was too heavy to push away.

  Was this her doing? Some revenge?

  Something cracked across the side of his head, sending icicles of pain through his skull. He caught sight of Inera standing over him, cold, brown eyes alight with an unknown fury. Dormael had a moment to feel a sense of betrayal.

  Another crack, and he felt nothing at all.

  Chasing the Blood

  “He was here,” D’Jenn said. “I saw him come this way before I was attacked.”

  Allen kicked at a wooden crate that lay forgotten against the side of a dun-colored building. The rain came down in a cold, steady pour that soaked D’Jenn down to the skin. He stared over the water-logged streets, watching the runoff flow by. This was the exact spot where D’Jenn had attempted to contact Dormael, and had been tossed back into his body.

  Allen cursed beside him.

  “Can’t you just wiggle your fingers, say a few words, and find out where in the Six Hells he is?”

  “It’s not that simple,” D’Jenn sighed. “Would that it was.”

  “I’ve seen Dormael do something like that before, cast some spell that led him to something he’d lost. Can’t you just duplicate that?”

  “No. I’ve tried to contact him, to find him, to scry him out, and all I get is some sort of interference. Someone is masking his presence in the magic—and that doesn’t bode well at all.”

>   “Couldn’t he be doing it himself? Maybe he’s lying with a wench somewhere, and doesn’t want to be…scried upon…or whatever it is that you call it.” Allen sounded hopeful.

  “No,” D’Jenn replied. “I know your brother’s song better than any but my own, and if he were doing this, I’d know it. There is something strange going on here.”

  Allen grumbled a curse and adjusted his weaponry.

  “What do we do, then?”

  “There is nothing for it,” D’Jenn said. “We’ll have to make our way down these alleys until we find a clue that could point us in the right direction. Perhaps someone saw something that could help, or we’ll find something.”

  With that, D’Jenn set off down an adjacent alley, and Allen had no choice but to follow. The two of them slogged through rain puddles with their shoulders hunched against the downpour, searching through the maze of back alleys in the East Market District. Thunder rumbled overhead as the storm continued on.

  D’Jenn began marking off alleys that they’d already investigated. The twists and turns of the East Market were bad enough on the main roads. The back alleys and forgotten side streets were a virtual labyrinth of dead ends, stairs going up or down, narrow spaces between buildings, and even access tunnels that led down into Ishamael’s extensive sewer system. After a couple of hours of fruitless searching, D’Jenn began to grow worried.

  Then, rounding a corner into a dead end, they found the body.

  He was propped against the wall of a building with his head slumped to the side, his eyes staring at nothing. Blood had leaked from a couple of wounds in the man’s side, and the rain had washed it onto the cobblestones, turning the puddles around him a murky, rusted color. The corpse was wrapped in a heavy cloak, staring from a deep hood. A short sword was tangled in the sheath at his waist, thrust out of sorts by the wall behind him. D’Jenn moved his hands aside and rummaged through his clothing, finding a few silver marks in his purse. D’Jenn found the wounds that had ended the man—three punctures in his side, and a wound in the man’s armpit—and wiped his bloody fingers on the corpse’s cloak. The man’s hands had the calluses of a swordsman. A dagger lay on the ground nearby, half submerged in the bloody puddle.

  Allen moved over to the body and drew the short sword from its sheath.

  “This is no common bruiser’s weapon,” he said, showing the blade to D’Jenn. “The blade is good steel—you can tell by the color. Unless he was a very highly paid bruiser, I’d say this man was some sort of minor noble, or rich merchant’s guard.”

  “Aye,” D’Jenn said, eyeing the dagger he’d picked up from the street. “And whoever killed him didn’t bother to retrieve their dagger. A man like this doesn’t get mugged by street urchins. There was a fight here, up close and personal. He never drew that sword.”

  “I wonder…,” Allen mused, and then he squatted next to the body and began to rip the man’s long sleeves open, widening the tear until the arms were visible. Standing out against the man’s pallid skin was a single tattoo on his right shoulder—a red sword hanging point down.

  “Galanians,” D’Jenn spat, tucking the dagger into his belt. “I knew they were going to show up again.”

  “You said that you’d crippled their ship on the Stormy Sea,” Allen said.

  “We crippled one ship. Who knows how many were dispatched after us? They could have made landing and bought passage here on a river vessel, while we traveled overland through the mountains. Or even worse—they might have had agents in the city already.” D’Jenn would have agents everywhere, were he the Galanian Emperor. It only made sense.

  “The Red Swords are supposed to be an elite military unit,” Allen said. “Why would Dargorin send them here, when his war is in Thardin?”

  “He sent them after Shawna’s armlet, too. Maybe they’re just his personal mercenaries.”

  “My brother was here,” Allen growled.

  “It’s all a bit too coincidental otherwise, don’t you think?” D’Jenn said, running through options in his mind.

  “We have to alert the Conclave, and the Guard,” Allen said, his weapons clinking as he turned to hurry out into the street.

  “Wait!”

  Allen stopped and turned back to him, a frustrated look on his face.

  D’Jenn sighed. “There is something going on, and more than Dormael’s abduction. There are things happening within the Conclave—dangerous things—and I don’t know who’s involved and who isn’t. I don’t know if this is all connected, and haven’t had a chance to think it through. Until we know whom we can trust, we have to do this own our own. You and I.”

  “On our own?” Allen exclaimed. “You and I could tear this entire city apart looking for Dormael and never find him in time! Meanwhile, someone with the capability to capture a wizard, and to hide him from you, is holding him! He could be tortured, or could be dying! How in the Six Hells are you and I supposed to find him on our own?”

  “We don’t have to tear the city apart,” D’Jenn said. “There are only so many places in Ishamael where one could go to work the kind of magic necessary to hide your brother, and even fewer where it could be done without alerting every wizard within a square league to their presence—not to mention keeping Dormael himself from breaking free. It takes quite a bit to suppress the power of a wizard of your brother’s strength.”

  “Where, then?”

  “They’d need a hidden place, somewhere safe from prying eyes, and the senses of other wizards. Somewhere with enough space to construct a Greater Circle to suppress your brother, and strong enough walls to keep the energies contained. Magic on that scale is hard to keep hidden, especially in a city full of other wizards.”

  “The sewers—Indalvian’s Tunnels!” Allen said, speaking the realization aloud as it came into D’Jenn’s mind. The cousins nodded at each other, and set off at a jog to find the nearest entrance to Ishamael’s underground sewer systems.

  Thunder continued pealing overhead.

  ***

  Dormael awoke with his mind hazy, a burning agony throbbing in the back of his skull. He could feel cool, damp stone beneath his skin. He was naked. Someone was running a cold finger over his chest, tracing the bruise that had formed during his dream. He tried to say something, but all that came out of his mouth was a pitiful groan of pain.

  “He’s awake,” someone said. “Hoist him.”

  There was a clinking, groaning noise, and his hands began to rise from his stomach. He realized that he was shackled, could feel the cold metal beginning to bite into his wrists as his weight was hoisted upward by his arms. His torso left the cold ground, stretching the sore, bruised muscles across his midsection. He was pulled to his feet, then higher, until only his toes could touch the ground. His legs scrambled over the wet stone, toes digging into the grit as they tried to find purchase on its slippery surface. He sputtered into the low torchlight that stabbed at his eyes.

  “Wake up, my love.” The voice was like silk sliding over his senses.

  Dormael pushed his eyelids open, head throbbing with pain as light filled his eyes.

  Inera stood before him, resting one diminutive, cold hand on his cheek. She had to rise up on her toes to reach him. She’d always been petite. That had been something he’d loved about her.

  “Where…,” he began, but she shushed him with a finger to his dry, cracked lips.

  “Don’t worry about that, love. It will all be clear soon enough.” The finger left his lips and Inera stepped away from him.

  Manacles bit into his wrists, and he glanced up to see the chain suspended from an ancient pulley system—some relic of Ishamael’s construction, put to new use by his captors. He could hear water running, trickling, and dripping all around him, echoing from the stone as if he were in a cave of some sort. The air felt heavy, wet, and cool. The stones under his feet were slick and moldy, but uniform and flat.

  I’m in Indalvian’s Tunnels, he realized. I’m under the city.

  He curs
ed inwardly at that.

  Ishamael had an extensive system of underground sewers, storage, and secret tunnels built by Indalvian and his wizards during the city’s founding. To this day, no one had bothered to map the entire system, and plans for the original construction had been lost long ago. If he was being held in some obscure corner of the tunnels, then hope was thin that he would be rescued. If she planned to kill him, then his corpse would rot here for all eternity.

  Inera stepped across something on the ground before turning to face him, and Dormael shot his eyes to the stones underfoot. He froze. There were two curving lines of colored sand laid out in a circle around him. The inside ring was bright, almost clear—perhaps glass beads, or dust—while the outside ring, piled a little higher, was charred and black. There were runic symbols scrawled in chalk upon the ground, both inside and outside the concentric rings of sand. Dormael felt another curse brewing inside as he realized what they meant.

  He was inside a Greater Circle. They were containing him, blocking him from using his Kai.

  “You begin to see,” Inera said, turning to regard something laid out on a small wooden table behind her. Hope drained from him like water poured from a bottle. He could hear his heart beating in his ears. He felt the slight pressure of the magic around him, pressing inward against his senses and his skin, holding his own magic inside. His body began to tremble.

  “Why—,” he coughed, his throat as dry as a desert. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Oh, Dormael,” she replied, turning to face him once again. “It’s almost endearing, how little you know.” Her white hair was cascading down her small shoulders, now bare since she had discarded her cloak. Inera’s skin was a grayish color, something between an attractive paleness, and the pallor of a dead body. She was wearing a leather girdle across her midsection, a mockery of something a serving wench would wear, and underneath it a simple dress of dark brown slashed with cream. The dress was tattered and ripped, and her shapely, pale legs were visible beneath it, almost to the point of indecency. She was barefoot, and oblivious to the cold. She moved with grace, but her countenance made it the grace of a ghost rather than that of a dancer.