The Seven Signs: Three Book Collection

by D. W. Hawkins

  Sometime during the Conclave’s past, the wizards had seen fit to fix this problem by creating a network of staircases and passageways that would keep servants and Initiates from having to dodge through the press of the Common Hall to see to their duties. These passages—only wide enough for two—criss-crossed between rooms, floors, and buildings. Some of them even went down into the tunnels beneath the Conclave, down to the archives and the Crux. Some mysterious, long-standing tradition had named those passageways the Rat Holes. No one had bothered to change it in hundreds of years, as far as Dormael knew.

  Around the entrance to one of the Rat Holes, there was a commotion. A few dozen people crowded near the entrance to the corridor, trying to get a look down a winding staircase. A pair of scowling wizards held the crowd at bay, calling for ‘manners and good sense’ with the insistence of someone who had been placed in authority. The people obeyed them for the most part, but curiosity was a powerful force. The buzz in the room flickered through his Kai like silent lightning.

  Floating closer, Dormael saw that the entrance to the staircase was warded from magical intrusion as well, with a swirling wall of energy that would trap his mind if he tried to penetrate it. He could not scry past it. Something had definitely happened, and a stone settled into his guts.

  Dormael withdrew his senses back into his own body, and jumped up from the floor.

  “Did you find her?” Shawna asked, sensing his urgency.

  “No,” Dormael said, shaking his head, “but I found something. It may or may not have something to do with her, but it’s the only lead we have right now. Come on, we’re going down to the Common Hall. Bring your swords?”

  Shawna gave him a fierce smile, and snatched her blades from his table.

  ***

  Bethany stared at the pair of footprints trailing through the dust of the corridor, trying to decide what to do. She had no idea how to tell anything from the prints, save that someone had come this way. Were they friends of the man she had encountered in the tunnels? There was no telling how long ago they had come down the corridor, but Bethany had heard nothing but her own breathing for what felt like hours.

  To follow, or not?

  She might be walking right into the hands of her enemies. There might be another man waiting around the corner of a distant corridor, magic poised for an attack. Maybe they would chase her back into the darkness if they found her, and she’d never find her way out. The runes glowed warm, amber light into the hallway, humming against her Kai like a pleasant tune. They seemed to await her decision.

  The prints were big people, and that was what decided her. Big people never knew where to look, and if Bethany was careful, she was sure that they couldn’t catch her this time. She would make sure that she was more watchful. If nothing else, she could hang back in the shadows, and follow whomever was down here to safety.

  The glowing runes, though, presented a problem. They lit up as she came down the hallway, warming like a fire coaxed to life, and faded as she passed by. The runes would announce her as surely as a herald—but they were the only thing holding the darkness at bay. Narrowing her eyes, Bethany stared at the curving metal lines laid into the stone.

  “I need you to be quiet now,” she whispered. Bethany wasn’t sure how she did it, but she could feel the magic moving into the link with the runes. She pulled power from it, decreasing the volume of her own magic, until her Kai’s song was just above a whisper. The runes, in response, faded to a subdued glow. It took her eyes a moment to adjust, but once she had closed them and counted to seven—a trick for saving her night-vision that Dormael had taught her—there was plenty of light by which to see.

  “Pirate-Queen of the Seas,” she whispered with a smile.

  The footprints meandered down the corridor, turned right, wandered down that hallway, then onto a winding staircase that led deeper into the tunnels. Bethany hesitated only a moment, making sure the glowing runes continued on the lower level, and followed the trail the footprints left for her. Bethany took her slippers off and stuffed them into her belt—they were stupid, girly things that Dormael forced her to wear, anyway. In her bare feet, she could almost run over the smooth stone underfoot without making a sound. The slippers squeaked and scuffed and made all kinds of noise. The hard stone was chilly on the soles of her feet, but she relished in the freedom. Taking her shoes off always made her want to run.

  She followed the footsteps for another eternity, taking winding turns and heading ever deeper into the ground. Her Kai sang to her in a low hum, and she could tell by the sound of the earth around her that she was much farther underground than she had ever been. The weight of dirt pressing against the stone felt like weight on her own shoulders, though she knew she couldn’t really feel it—that was some trick of her magic.

  As she went deeper, though, there was something else.

  At first Bethany didn’t know what to make of the sound. It was like a heartbeat, or breathing. She could feel energy in these corridors, invisible veins of magical pressure pulsing through the hallways, humming with the very stone of the Conclave tunnels. Bethany felt like she had been swallowed by some great lizard, and she was running down its throat, listening to its breathing.

  The farther she went down the passageway, the more energy she could feel. Her Kai resonated with it, reached out and touched it in some childlike manner. Bethany felt a tingle of excitement every time it did so, as if she was tapped into a river of starlight. She had to suppress the urge to laugh and skip as she moved down the hallway, following the river of magic. The runes followed her, their subdued glow humming in her senses.

  When she reached the next level down, the air was so charged with power that it buzzed against her skin. Something was gathering magic to itself, something deep within the tunnels. She could feel it pulling at her Kai, beckoning her power to dance with it. It was tempting, like an itch that needed scratching, but Bethany kept her magic to herself. Something told her that she didn’t want to be caught up in it.

  Lines of silver were laid into the floor on this level, and she could feel them humming with the spell in the distant part of the tunnels, as if they were a part of it. Bethany was careful not to touch the curving, concentric lines of silver, nor the runes that were scrawled over the floor between them. Some of the glyphs were as tall as she was, and all of it was vibrating with magical energy. She stepped over the metal, keeping her bare feet on the stone.

  As she moved farther down the tunnel, a new sound began to emerge.

  An alien, crooning song flitted through the corridor, a ghostly echo resonating with her Kai. Bethany froze when she heard it, and drew her magic in close. The runes that been lighting her way in subdued tones waned to the whisper of an afterglow.

  It was the fiega—Shawna’s armlet.

  Despite her efforts to hide, the armlet knew she was there. She could feel it in the tone of its song, the recognition it sang with, the warmth it tried to show her. Bethany wanted to brush it away—after all, the last time she’d listened to it, very bad things happened—but it was insistent. It had sent her dream after dream in the days following the fight at sea, though she had declined to tell Dormael or D’Jenn. They were never more than scattered pictures and impressions, anyway, and Bethany didn’t think they meant much of anything.

  The thing was lonely. Bethany wasn’t sure how she could tell. It was like the way that lies sounded different to her ears, or the way she knew what her Kai sounded like—some things a person just knew. That was why the armlet was so rough with everyone. It was like a puppy, too big to know that its tail knocked over everything in the room every time it wanted to play.

  Bethany wasn’t supposed to talk to it. She was forbidden to listen to it, and she was under strict instruction never to reach out to the thing with her magic. You know what happened last time, she could almost hear Dormael saying to her. Don’t do anything too stupid to fix.

  Before she could stop it, though, it reached out to her. Before she c
ould stop herself, she reached back.

  The whole cabin vibrated with her fear, the door slamming shut against the frame, the wood creaking around her. She could feel the storm in her chest, a constant resonance with the thunder that cracked the skies, and churned the seas they rode to chaos. The song of the armlet crooned from its place in their bags, calming her magic from the storm of fear it had become.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “It’s me—Bethany.”

  The armlet sent her a feeling of warmth, of something close to friendship. Bethany could feel the heat in her arms and legs, as if she’d just crawled from a warm bath. She smiled, and sent the armlet back a jumble of feelings—the way she felt when Dormael ruffled her hair, the way she felt when Shawna fixed it, the feeling of laughter at one of Allen’s jokes, or of accomplishment under D’Jenn’s tutelage.

  The armlet sang back.

  Their enemies crawled over the deck of the ship, like ants over a rotting corpse. Men and metal and sweat and lightning, cries of anger and pain. The skies boiled, the seas churned. Their enemies would win unless they went up together and burned them from the ship. Immolate them, set them aflame, BURN EVERYTHING IN SIGHT.

  “Stop it!” Bethany hissed into the hum of magical energy. The sight of the man in the tunnels, his hand reaching for help, filled her mind. She heard his screams again, and she shut them away somewhere dark, banishing them from her mind. “Just…stop.”

  Surprisingly, the armlet complied. Its song fell to a dull hum, the insistence gone from it. It sang something low, something she could understand.

  Come.

  Biting her lip in trepidation, Bethany followed the song of the armlet down the curving hallway. She wasn’t sure what would happen once she found it, but she knew one thing—wherever it was, there was probably someone there who could help her.

  Letting the fiega guide her, she set off toward the heart of the strange magical spell.

  ***

  “You know I can’t let you down there,” Jarek said. “The deacon would have both our arses over a spit for that, Dormael.”

  Jarek Suriah was a hulking beast of a man, wide-shouldered and grim-faced. He was a Mal, and bore tattoos in swirling geometric patterns that wound over every inch of his arms, which were thicker than many trees that Dormael had seen. He stood fully three hands taller than Dormael, and scowled down at the swords that Shawna wore on her belt. Shawna repaid his attention with a bored, feline gaze.

  Jarek was one of Dormael’s own generation. They had trained together as Warlocks, and had completed their training as part of the same small group. Jarek Suriah looked like a tavern brawler, but he had a sharp mind, and a strong sense of justice. Like all people from Tasha-Mal, Jarek could be prickly about things like honor and blood-debts.

  “It’s nothing about a child, though,” Mataez said from beside him. “It’s a body, Dormael—a grown man by the looks of him. Burnt to cinders down in the Rat Holes.” Jarek turned his scowl down on Mataez, which the shorter man waved off with a scowl of his own. “The deacon didn’t mean to keep the information a secret from one of ours, Jarek. Dormael’s a Warlock, too. Remove the stick from your arse, brother.”

  Mataez was another member of their class, and of a height with Dormael. He was a Runemian, with short, mud-colored hair not unlike Dormael’s own. Mataez was a bit thicker through the shoulders and waist than Dormael, but was quicker than he looked. The man had the odd talent of being able to remember everything he read with a startling amount of accuracy. His mind was like a steel trap.

  The two of them stood guarding the entrance to the Rat Holes, maintaining a ward between them that closed the doorway off from intrusion, or inspection. Behind them, the entranceway was nothing but an undulating dark surface.

  “When did this happen?” Dormael asked, dread pooling in the pit of his stomach.

  “Sometime between now and the afternoon,” Mataez shrugged. “The deacon hasn’t come up from his inspection yet, but the rumor is that one of the staff found it when she went down to check after the screaming.”

  “Do they know to whom the body belongs?” Shawna asked. Jarek raised an eyebrow at her, but Mataez nudged him in the side. Jarek gave Mataez an evil look, and cleared his throat. It sounded like boulders rubbing together.

  “We don’t know anything yet,” Jarek said. “From what we’ve heard, though, it would be hard to tell.”

  “First murder I can remember in the Conclave,” Mataez said, shaking his head.

  “You believe it was murder?” Shawna asked.

  “What do you think happened? Somebody tripped and fell on a candle, then managed to burn to death in the middle of a stone hallway?” Mataez said. “Of course it was murder, and done with magic.”

  Shawna gave Mataez an evil look, to which the man replied by holding up his hands for peace.

  “I can’t remember that ever happening,” Jarek rumbled. “A wizard murdering someone on the Conclave grounds. They’ll be talking about it for a hundred years.”

  “I’ll bet the Initiates already have a trove of rumors,” Mataez said. “Remember when we were children? We used to start them for fun.”

  “I remember,” Dormael smiled. His mind, though, could focus on nothing but Bethany. “Listen, brothers—It’s important that I speak to the deacon. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t about my daughter—you’ve met her, right?”

  “Aye,” Mataez grumbled, looking away. Jarek gave Dormael a narrow look.

  “I need to get down there. You know I’m not going to mess anything up. Victus won’t mind you letting me through—you know that,” Dormael said. His reasons had nothing to do with Victus, but if he painted them that way, maybe the boys would let him pass. “You know I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t worried for her safety.”

  Mataez and Jarek shared an uncomfortable look.

  “Better to ask forgiveness,” Mataez shrugged. Jarek just shook his head and looked away. Mataez turned back to Dormael and took a deep breath.

  “Fine,” Mataez sighed. “If he catches you, though, it’s on you. I don’t want another tour at the Southern Bastion anytime soon. Nothing but scorpions, sand, and Mals to keep you company. Dreadful.”

  “You know how hard I can hit,” Jarek sighed, “yet you still say things like that.”

  “I didn’t mean you, of course—you’re one of the good ones,” Mataez smiled. “It’s your women I was talking about. Mean as the underworld, dry as the desert. Nothing good about them.”

  “Thanks, brothers. I won’t forget this,” Dormael said.

  Just as Mataez and Jarek stepped aside and dropped their ward, however, Victus appeared on the stairs. He noticed Dormael standing between the two men he’d left to guard the entrance, and narrowed his eyes at the three of them. Mataez and Jarek acted completely natural.

  “Dormael,” Victus said, “I’ve been looking for you all day, boy. Come on—there’s something you need to see.”

  With that, Victus turned and descended once again into the darkened tunnels. Dormael shared a look with Shawna, shrugged at his two fellow Warlocks, and stepped after Victus. Shawna followed him close behind. He had hoped to avoid Victus until he could talk to D’Jenn about the details of what he had discovered, but there was no helping it now.

  Now he had to lie to the man who had taught him to lie.

  “I imagine the boys filled you in?” Victus’s voice echoed from further down the stairs.

  “Aye, at least what they knew,” Dormael replied. “A body, burnt to a crisp, as Mataez put it.”

  Dormael came to the bottom of the landing, where Victus waited. The man’s Kai hummed into the tunnels, evoking a magical light. There were usually candles on this level, but Dormael couldn’t spot any pools of light. Shawna came down the steps and fell in beside him, eyeing Victus with caution. If Victus minded her presence, he said nothing of it.

  “A body, indeed,” Victus said. “There’s something you need to see, though.”

  “Something I need to see?
” Dormael asked, the dread in his stomach deepening.

  “Just follow me, I’ll show you,” Victus nodded.

  Dormael shared a concerned look with Shawna as Victus strode away, then turned to follow the deacon into the tunnels. He led them down twisting corridors, and then down another staircase to some of the lower levels. Shawna gave Dormael a questioning look, but he waved her off. He didn’t want to reveal anything to Victus that he didn’t have to, and silence was always better than active subterfuge for hiding things.

  Victus stopped walking, and signaled for Dormael to do the same.

  “This is where it starts,” the deacon said, motioning Dormael forward. “Have a look, boy. Let’s see if you’re still sharp enough to pass muster, eh?”

  “I passed muster a long time ago, Deacon. Watch me.”

  He couldn’t help but feel a pang in his guts as the smile came to his face. He trusted D’Jenn, but part of his heart was rebelling against the idea that Victus was a traitor. The smirk on the deacon’s face was proud, even as the light in his eyes was calculating. Try as Dormael might, he couldn’t see an enemy when he looked at the man. Taking a deep breath, he shoved his feelings into the back of his mind, and focused on the task at hand.

  First, he opened his Kai and filled the hallway with light.

  The thing that first caught his eye was the fact that the doors had been pushed open. There were three doors on each side of this particular hallway, and each had been pushed open and left ajar. Tiny footprints in the dust marked where someone—a child, by the look of the prints—had walked to each door and looked inside. Dormael walked further down the tunnel, following the prints as they meandered past each room. Victus and Shawna had stopped some distance behind him, Victus gesturing for her to give Dormael some space. The little prints continued down the hallway and around the corner.