by Tom Lloyd
Or like some bastard night mage just put me down again, Lynx thought with a growl of anger cutting through the confusion in his mind.
He groaned and tried to move, rolling on to his side to heave himself upright. As he reached out a hand, it met soft, yielding flesh. Lynx froze, then carefully withdrew his fingers from whoever’s buttock it was.
‘Good decision,’ Sitain croaked softly.
Gods, did she put me down? Lynx wondered for a crazed moment, until he remembered the rush of glittering water, the fronds of light hanging from the stone tree.
He mumbled an apology and eased himself up, blinking at the strange flashes of light smeared across his vision. The line and shape of the figure ahead of him slowly came into focus and he quickly looked to one side as Sitain sat up, an arm self-consciously across her breasts.
‘What happened?’ he heard Kas groggily ask.
Deern’s voice cut through the muzzy confusion like a rusty knife. ‘Screw that – what the fuck’s happened to my skin!’
Lynx frowned and tried to focus properly. His skin had a maddening itch to it, the nag of a half-healed wound, but he couldn’t make out much with the bursts and smears of light that almost … He paused. Almost looked like willow leaves.
‘Oh shit,’ Lynx whispered as he took a closer look, blinking furiously. The mess of dull light in his eyes wasn’t clearing, but as his wits returned he realised it was not as much of a mess as he’d first thought.
‘What in all that’s shattered is this?’ Sitain said.
She looked up and their eyes met, then they looked each other up and down, no longer focusing on how they were both naked.
‘We didn’t just get drunk and find some light-mage to tattoo us, right?’
Lynx coughed a laugh and just stared, open-mouthed at her then himself. The markings on their skin were faint; fainter than he’d first thought, but distinct enough to make out as some sort of stylised willow-leaf pattern – and glowing to boot. Nothing very bright, but a dull shine seemed to have settled over their bodies as they lay unconscious. It covered much of Lynx’s front, while Sitain had been lying on her side by the looks of her body.
He shifted his arm slightly to where it had been resting and realised the pattern now matched up – a gasp from Sitain told him she’d noticed the same.
‘Gods, is this on my face?’
He prodded his cheeks, but Lynx couldn’t feel anything different there. His skin prickled all over, even parts where he could see nothing of the lambent markings.
‘Yeah,’ Sitain confirmed, prodding his cheek. ‘There, across the bottom of your tattoo and the bridge of your nose. It runs down your throat to your chest.’
‘But not my back?’
She leaned to one side, her nose wrinkling a little as she looked down the mess of scarring running the length of his back. ‘Nope.’
‘Fuck’s sake,’ he said with a bitter laugh. ‘Good to see the pretty bit of me was kept pristine.’
Lynx looked round at the others as he got unsteadily to his feet. They were all similarly marked, the leaf pattern almost identical but settling on each one in a unique way. The stone tree above them was bare again, the glimmering water of the moat returned as though nothing had ever happened. Only the marks on their bodies showed it was more than just a dream, but what exactly had happened was lost on Lynx.
‘Lastani?’ he called, approaching the young woman who stood clutching her head and leaning against the tree trunk. ‘You okay?’
She gave him a wan smile. ‘Just a little dazed and …’ She tailed off, but a small smile appeared on her lips.
‘What?’
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted, ‘but my body feels odd.’
‘Mine too,’ Lynx said, ‘tingling all over like some sort o’ bloody rash.’
‘No, not that – I feel good, strong. Like I’m ready to run miles or lift great stones.’ She looked past him to the other mages there. ‘Sitain? Atieno? Do you feel different?’
Sitain nodded. ‘Strong, yes. Full of energy. I reckon I could put you all out with a snap of my fingers if I needed to – feels like I’ve just drunk in half the world’s supply of night magic.’
‘Atieno?’
The ageing man took a few tentative steps towards them, looking more startled and worried than anything else, but he nodded slowly. ‘I feel unusual,’ he hazarded. ‘Young, almost. My leg, it’s—’
‘Your bad leg got healed too?’ Lynx said with a grin. ‘That water’s good stuff, eh? I still got my scars, but every bruise and cut’s been washed away.’
‘Not quite, but better than it has been in years.’
‘Good news then. An old injury?’
The dark-skinned man gave him a wonder-struck look, tugging his long grey-black hair away from his face as he tried to frame his thoughts. ‘No injury,’ he said eventually. ‘But that’s the point – it’s impossible. My limp, it’s a consequence of my magic.’
‘Tempest? Why?’
‘It is the magic of change,’ Atieno explained. ‘To draw and use too much of it is to fill my body with that magic. Physical ailments and deformities are common among my kind – the more we use our magic, the more we change ourselves.’
Lynx frowned. ‘What are you saying?’
‘That I limped because the bones of my foot were turning to stone – not because of any injury I’ve suffered. But now …’ He shook his head, the normally reserved mage now looking openly bewildered. ‘Now it’s noticeably improved, the magic here has reversed that. I feel strong, yes, but I also feel whole again!’
‘Can any of you tell me what these tattoos are? What they mean?’ Toil demanded, looking over her shoulder from where she knelt at Paranil’s side. The injured man hadn’t yet risen, or indeed woken so far as Lynx could tell.
‘I’ve no idea,’ Lastani said, glancing at Sitain and Atieno as she spoke. ‘But it appears they are the prize of this labyrinth.’
‘More valuable than God Fragments?’
‘Older,’ she said with more certainty. ‘This place predates the fall, I’m almost certain. There were no God Fragments when this labyrinth was built, built to guide a chosen few to this chamber. And remember the glyph all the entrances formed on the map? The character for “the divine”?’
‘Eh?’ Deern broke in, swaggering forward and absentmindedly rubbing at the glowing leaf marks on his inner thigh. ‘You saying we’ve become gods?’
She shook her head, but slowly, dubiously. ‘I’m not saying that, no, but if you could feel what I feel … I don’t have the words, but the power here is immense. I don’t know what’s been done to us, but we’re changed somehow, all of us. That glow on your skin is nothing compared to what I can feel, it’s like a stone that’s been left in the fire – some deep inner heat coming off us in waves.’
Lynx took a few steps, unsteady at first but swiftly becoming long and purposeful strides. His skin crawled and itched, yes, but Lastani’s words rang true as he moved. There was an energy inside him, a warmth and strength that screamed to be used. Those few steps seemed to ease the tingle somewhat and made it less distracting, but his thick limbs remained brimming with restless power. Any last traces of fatigue were gone, tiredness itself a distant memory.
‘What are we waiting for now?’ he asked, pacing in a circle as others began to copy him or shifted their feet.
‘We’ve no idea what’s been done to us!’ Lastani protested.
‘I don’t care,’ he said simply. ‘There’s a fight going on and for once I’m itching for it. I can’t stand idle down here while you make notes.’
‘He’s right,’ Suth broke in. ‘Whatever this is, we can find out once the city’s safe. It might be this makes the difference if you mages are overflowing with power, but we won’t know until we get back up there. Bade won’t be wasting any time now he’s got the prize. A prize anyway.’
‘The man’s a bastard still,’ Toil pointed out, ‘and he’s booby-trapped one door with grenades
already so we take as much care going up as we did coming down.’
‘The armoury wasn’t entirely emptied by us either,’ Suth added, ‘so he could have something bigger in one of those bags they were carrying, but a rat’s first instinct is to run for safety and I’ve got friends likely dying on the surface.’
Clearly agreeing, Toil plunged back into the water with a grin of anticipation and waded back across towards her clothes. The rest eagerly followed in the next moment, a few whoops of enthusiasm accompanying them, while Aben carried his unconscious friend over. The touch of the water had no effect on any of them this time and Paranil was still limp when Aben set him down, but his wound had closed. Toil hauled herself from the water and sat on the side, pausing in the act of reaching for her shirt as a thought occurred to her.
‘Overflowing with power,’ she said hesitantly. ‘Just how dangerous could you three be in a fight right now?’
‘To everyone around us?’ Atieno replied, moving with ease and naked delight on his face. ‘Very, especially me. I don’t have the precision Lastani has, my life’s been mostly one of restraint – and I’ve never had this much power available to me. Sitain doesn’t have the training to discriminate between friend and foe but at least she’s likely to only put you all to sleep not turn your flesh to stone.’
‘And with that God Fragment? They’re used to focus power in making mage-gun cartridges, no? That’s how something so small can be so destructive, right?’
‘So a mage in battle,’ Lastani said slowly, ‘focusing their power through a God Fragment, should be terrible to behold.’
‘For a minute or two at least,’ Atieno said drily. ‘Then some sharpshooter a few hundred yards away puts an icer through my head.’
‘So don’t wade in like a vengeful god,’ Toil said. ‘Worth considering, isn’t it? There’s an advantage if we use it right – I doubt the Knights-Charnel would even consider permitting a slave to use a relic so freely.’
Atieno scowled at the term, but they all knew that was how the Charnelers viewed his kind. He clambered out of the water and stood, looking down at himself as the silvery water seemed to wriggle and slide down his skin back to the moat below. In moments he was completely dry, the only strange sight on his brown skin being the gently glowing tattoos.
‘Let’s see, shall we?’ Atieno said when he’d dressed and was satisfied his clothes weren’t going to disintegrate off his body. He gingerly reached into the pocket where he’d stowed the God Fragment and held it up to the weak light. As soon as it touched his skin, the shard of smoked crystal blazed like a lamp’s wick.
Lynx squinted through the sudden brightness, just able to make out the shape of the fragment as Atieno held it out at arm’s length. It shone only for a few moments, however. Just as Lynx found his eyes begin to water the light faded and then all of a sudden the fragment crumbled to glittering dust and fell into the water below.
‘What have you done?’ Suth yelled, scrambling forward. She swiped her hand at the water but there was not even a trace of dust on the surface and she slapped the surface in anger.
‘Our one damn prize from this whole journey,’ she raged, ‘and you’ve gone and destroyed it!’
‘I did nothing; it just fell apart in my fingers!’ Atieno protested. ‘The magic inside it just seemed to fold in on itself – or was drawn down into the water.’
‘Drawn down?’ Lastani said sharply. ‘Are you sure?’
He shook his head. ‘That’s how it felt, I’m sure of nothing.’
‘Why?’ Toil demanded. ‘What does that mean to you?’
‘Nothing as yet, I’ve yet to build a hypothesis.’
‘But you’ve got an idea?’
‘I’ve … I don’t know what I have,’ Lastani admitted. ‘But the glyph for “the divine”, the hidden tree – they put me in mind of old, half-remembered myths. Ones I’ve not read,’ she added pointedly, ‘but names that survived the purges. The heresy works, Noxeil and all those writings – the stone of light, the taproot of the Duegar.’
‘Get to the point.’
‘I don’t have one, not yet. I need time to think.’
Toil stared at her for a long while. ‘Do it while you get dressed,’ she said at last. ‘Whatever this all means, there’s a battle going on in the city. Whether we’ve been touched by Duegar magic or some spirit o’ the divine, if the Charnelers take the city anyone with fucking tattoos that glow won’t see the outside of a sanctuary for the rest of their life.’
Before long, the entire group were dressed and following Toil back up to the larger cavern. They moved cautiously just in case there was a rearguard waiting, but in moments their concerns were forgotten. The deep darkness of the huge lower labyrinth was, Lynx realised, somehow less fearsome than before. The blackness less absolute, the shadows less threatening.
‘Am I the only one who can see better?’
‘No,’ Toil said quietly beside him. ‘This is different.’
One by one they agreed. Only Sitain seemed unmoved, but the mage had always had night vision that went far beyond anything natural.
‘Sitain’s eyes were touched by magic,’ Lastani pointed out, her dyed white hair now looking ethereal in the gloom. ‘It seems ours are now too.’
‘I’m starting to like this game,’ Toil said. ‘Let’s hope we live long enough to find out what else we can do. But first things first. You took a prisoner, Sitain? We probably shouldn’t leave them in case the labyrinth seals up behind us then. That would be rude. We fetch them and burn our dead if they’re close. We won’t catch Bade now but there’s a fight to join and I’ve got questions for anyone taking Bade’s orders.’
The Cards quickly went about their tasks, hauling the corpses they could find and dumping them outside the circular chamber once the insensate Charneler was secured. When they were reassembled Toil took one last glance up the dark chimney and nodded to Lastani.
‘The disc now. Let’s see where this chute takes us.’
The young mage nodded and touched her fingers to the central ‘gift’ disc at the top of the stairway they’d ascended. The stone blocks obediently slid back into place as she retreated out of the way again, but nothing more happened.
‘Try the gift again,’ Toil suggested. ‘Bade escaped on some sort of platform and that’s now at the top.’
Lastani repeated the action and this time retreated sharply as a blaze of bluish light came from somewhere high above in the shaft and the platform started to descend. While they were waiting, Teshen and Layir finished stripping their dead of personal effects before placing a burner under the folded hands of each.
The remaining mercenaries took cover as the platform dropped back down, guns at the ready, but, as expected, it was empty of Charnelers. Toil waved them inside where they formed a rough circle around the sphere in the centre, the prisoner at their feet. Teshen loaded a sparker into his gun and aimed it at the dead.
‘We ready?’ he asked, not wanting to set off a funeral pyre of several fire-bolts until he knew they were moving clear.
Lastani touched the sphere and a flash of light answered him, the floor giving a jolt before slowly starting to turn and lift upwards. Teshen grunted and adjusted his aim while the mercenaries beside him ducked down, but the platform started to pick up speed immediately and he only paused a second before firing through the dwindling gap. Lynx caught the bright orange flare and familiar whump of flames before it was lost behind a curved wall of stone and his thoughts turned upwards, towards the surface.
‘Where are we coming out?’
‘Somewhere Bade’s been before,’ Toil muttered. ‘And the North Keep shows he knows how to set a bomb so keep your wits about you and follow my lead.’
Judging by the silence that followed, Lynx guessed the others found that as sobering a thought as he did. Magic-touched eyesight or not, he was still in a confined space with no way of controlling how quickly or quietly they reached their destination. One well-judged grenade and the
y were all dead, assuming Bade had left anyone behind to watch his back.
Let’s just hope these mages are as overflowing with power as they say they are, he thought, but realised in the next moment he wasn’t frightened of the prospect – at worst mildly apprehensive. The power running through his skin – his strange new tattoos – filled him with strength and confidence.
It was hard to tell, but if the mages were feeling as alive as he did they’d be ready to take on the entire Charneler army. By the way Sitain and Lastani prowled around the sphere, fingers flexing constantly, he reckoned they were itching to unleash that power too.
This could be quite a sight, Lynx told himself as he did another check on his cartridge case to count how many shots he had left. Let’s just hope we get to tell the grandkids about it.
He paused and looked around at his companions; picturing children with playing card badges sewn on to their jackets and running around waving mage-pistols.
Shattered gods … Well, someone’s grandkids anyway.
Chapter 34
Lynx tightened his grip on his gun as the platform slowed and came to a smooth stop. There was little to see, however, no opening anywhere on the wall – just long flowing lines of Duegar script formed within the rock that glowed in the light of their lamps. It was brighter to his eyes now and Lynx could see more detail, but he ignored that as he concentrated on a way out. It wasn’t long before the walls seemed to start contracting around him, tightening like a cord around his chest.
‘There,’ Lastani said at last, pointing at one part that looked identical to the rest so far as Lynx was concerned.
‘Can you reach?’ Toil asked.
Lastani nodded and went to the section of wall. She placed her hand on a glyph, then traced a line with her other index finger along the curve of the glowing pattern. That continued until her arms were outstretched and she could only brush her fingernails against a second glyph, whereupon both pulsed with light.