Magefall

by Stephen Aryan

  CHAPTER 24

  It felt strange to be out of uniform but Tammy enjoyed the anonymity it provided. It was a little before midnight and the streets of Perizzi were busy with drinkers and patrols of the Watch scooping up people and breaking up fights before they turned into proper brawls. At one point Tammy was forced to carry a teenage girl to the nearest squad of the Watch. The girl had pretended to be seeking directions, only then to draw a knife and attempt to rob Tammy.

  After disarming the girl and putting her on her arse, the sensible thing to do would’ve been to run, but something in the girl wouldn’t quit. Tammy had been willing to let her go, but when the girl came at her with another knife she’d knocked out two of her teeth. Thankfully she only had to carry the girl on her shoulder for a couple of streets. The Captain of the squad recognised Tammy immediately and took the would-be robber off her hands into custody.

  Annoyed at the delay, Tammy increased her pace and arrived late at a modest house on a quiet side street. Wedged between a bakery and a cobbler’s was a narrow alley that led to a private courtyard. The houses were old-fashioned in design, tall and narrow as if huddled together for warmth. It was secluded but not too far away from amenities and the heart of the city. She also noticed it was only a few streets away from where her sister lived.

  After knocking on the door she glanced behind her and studied the windows facing onto the courtyard. All were dark and had the curtains closed but that didn’t mean someone wasn’t watching. A bit of paranoia in her position was healthy.

  The door behind her opened to reveal the Old Man. “Welcome. Come in,” he said, stepping aside. Tammy had to bow her head to get through the front door and the next doorway to enter his front room. She could see why the houses in this street might be unpopular with some, but for someone short like the Old Man it was probably quite cosy.

  She briefly glanced around the room, noting several chests of personal belongings that had not yet been unpacked. The furniture was old and worn but it was comfortable when she sat down. Her mentor cleared a stack of books from another chair and added more wood to the fire. The room was too hot and almost immediately her forehead was beaded with sweat. Knowing that old people felt the cold more readily she said nothing but took off her jacket and loosened her shirt. The Old Man noticed and a wry smile touched the corners of his mouth.

  “It will happen to you one day.”

  “If I live to be as old as you,” she replied.

  Before his retirement he’d looked worn out and had collapsed at the palace from exhaustion. Time away from the job seemed to have had a rejuvenating effect as his eyes were clear and focused. He moved with more energy than she’d seen in a long time, fetching two mugs of tea from the kitchen, despite her protest. Once they were both resettled, and she was getting too warm again from the fire and the tea, Tammy tried to find the right words.

  He could see that she was struggling with something and gave her time. It was another small delay but curiosity made her ask.

  “I noticed we’re only a few streets away from my sister.”

  The Old Man shrugged. “I didn’t want to walk halfway across the city every time I want to visit my long-lost family.”

  “Did Mary believe you?”

  “Of course not. She knew exactly who I was. I should have recruited you both,” he mused. “That would have been something.”

  “And the children?” she asked, getting dangerously close to a subject she did her best to avoid thinking about, even when alone.

  “They’re just happy to have something like a grandparent in their lives again. It’s been quite a few years. Mary says I’m spoiling them, but she lets me do it.”

  A weight lifted off her shoulders. Other larger, more pressing issues still weighed her down, but that thought gave her some relief. She’d been worried Mary would reject the Old Man’s offer and their long-term wellbeing had been playing on her mind. It was one thing she could set aside, allowing her to focus on larger concerns.

  “I need your opinion on a couple of things,” she said, getting to the reason for her visit.

  “Always happy to lend an ear.”

  “Habreel is dead. He was found last night, hanged in his cell.”

  “I see,” said the Old Man. He sounded fairly unmoved and Tammy shared his sentiment. There was a huge list of crimes levelled against Habreel which he’d freely admitted to committing. As result he’d been facing many years behind bars and potentially death by public hanging. “Do you suspect foul play?”

  Tammy shook her head. “I had Faulk check into the family history of all the other Guardians. Brook was the only acolyte of Akosh. I also trust everyone who had access to Habreel’s cell.”

  “Then what happened?” he said.

  She’d been mulling that over for hours. “I think it was guilt. Habreel still thought of himself as a Guardian. He had a mission and people who shared his ideology, but then he was betrayed. Everything he’d done, all of the terrible orders he’d given, were for nothing. When he arrived at my office, he was a broken man. I thought helping me bring others to justice would be enough for him.”

  The Old Man sighed. “He had a lot of pride. To find out he’d been outsmarted and lied to for years, by those closest to him, must have been difficult to swallow. In some ways I think it was inevitable.”

  Tammy was disappointed that Habreel had taken the easy way out instead of accepting responsibility. If it had been up to her she would have had him imprisoned for the rest of his life. That would’ve been torture for someone like him. To be part of the world, to hear about events, but have no place in them and no way to contribute.

  His suicide also meant that she had lost another valuable resource in her campaign against Akosh, which brought her to the other reason for her visit.

  “What was the other thing you wanted to speak about?” asked the Old Man.

  “All of the orphanages we’re watching in Perizzi, and some in the south, receive monthly donations from former orphans. And I found the recipient. A bookkeeper named Bertran. He’s currently sat in the black cells waiting to be questioned again.”

  Finding him had required a few days of following all of the visitors to the various orphanages in the city. Bertran never visited in person, and the money often arrived with other supplies, but with some persuasion her people had eventually found him. A few hours of studying his records had revealed nothing as it was all written in code. It might be possible for one of her people to crack it, but it wouldn’t happen overnight. In the meantime, Akosh’s network could be putting their plan into effect and she would have no idea about what it was or the repercussions.

  Guardian Faulk, one of her most trusted, had spent a few hours alone in a cell with Bertran but surprisingly had produced nothing of value. Physically the bookkeeper wasn’t imposing, a spindly, pale man with long, elegant fingers and a balding pate, but his mind was incredibly sharp. Faulk had fenced words with him for a long time, only to emerge with an appreciation of the man’s ability to recite and multiply numbers to avoid answering questions.

  “What is it you want to ask me?” prompted the Old Man.

  “Have you ever had someone tortured for information?”

  The Old Man didn’t look surprised. In fact his expression seemed to indicate he’d known this was coming. “I’ll need something a little stronger than tea,” he said, digging around in a box before producing a dusty old bottle. He offered her a glass but she declined and he poured himself a generous portion of a colourless liquid. She could smell it from across the room and guessed it was fairly potent.

  “What does this bookkeeper have?” he asked, setting the question aside for now.

  “A list of names. People in the network.”

  “And have these people done anything to harm others?”

  Tammy ticked items off on her fingers. “Some of them have spread stories that encouraged violence against Seekers and anyone with magic. Inciting hatred of children and taking part in
exiling or killing some of them. I also believe some of them have magic of their own and posed as Seekers to make it worse. You’ve heard the stories. The Red Tower denies the Seeker in Gorheaton was one of theirs and I believe Balfruss.”

  “That’s a long list of serious crimes, but I noticed you said some of them were responsible. What about the others you’ve not found yet?”

  “What about them?”

  “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

  “They’re dangerous people,” said Tammy.

  “Ah,” he said, holding up a finger. “Potentially they’re dangerous.”

  Tammy had been wrangling with this issue since the moment Bertran had refused to cooperate. More acts of violence and murder were likely, being perpetrated by members of this group, directed by Akosh. Finding her would be incredibly difficult. She suspected most of her people would rather kill themselves than give up any information, like Guardian Brook. However she had doubts about all of them being such zealots.

  The worst-case scenario was that Bertran gave her a list of names and they imprisoned all of them. Then it wouldn’t matter what orders Akosh sent out if she had no one to execute them. A better scenario was that some of them were willing to talk.

  Finding Akosh and stopping her was the end goal, but if Balfruss was right then it might be a better idea to let someone else deal with her. Tammy had no illusions. Her experiences with magic and what had happened in Voechenka didn’t make her an expert. She’d survived it, not mastered it and her skills lay elsewhere.

  She needed information and Bertran had it. Torturing him would give her the list of names she needed. At the moment it was likely some of the people in Akosh’s network hadn’t done anything, but it was what they might do if she gave an order that worried her.

  “All of these people. They’re all part of the same cult,” she said, pulling out a copy of a slim book she’d found at Bertran’s home. The Old Man opened it and began to flick through the pages, reading passages at random.

  It was identical to the one they’d found on Guardian Brook. By itself the religious text was fairly innocuous and not too dissimilar from others she’d read.

  The book of Akosh preached a number of values that were common to other faiths, such as compassion, helping others and equality. It deviated in only two significant ways that were potentially dangerous. First, there were no priests or places of worship. People simply prayed at home. Second, every member of the faith was a follower and Akosh, above all others, had to be obeyed. This founding principle overruled everything else. Every law, every tradition, every family value and blood tie, every moral restraint. Normally such a rule wouldn’t be an issue as people didn’t have conversations with their god. But with no priests all the orders came from just one person.

  Whether Tammy believed Akosh was actually a god, or a cult leader who had adopted the name and mantle of a predecessor, didn’t really matter. The followers of Akosh believed it and they obeyed her absolutely. So far she knew of at least three followers who had used their magic to kill people and then blown themselves up, despite such an act going against everything in their religious text. Akosh’s word had to be obeyed and they had done it, sacrificing themselves because she’d asked.

  All of which brought Tammy back to the original dilemma.

  “Did you ever have someone tortured?” she asked. The Old Man set the book aside and drained his glass in one go. Something made him wince, but she didn’t think it was the taste of the alcohol.

  “Yes, and I still carry the memories,” he replied. “Getting a confession that way is almost always unreliable, but a few years into the job a day came when I needed information and time was running out.”

  “Did you get what you needed?”

  “I did, and we stopped the ship unloading its tainted cargo.” He waved a hand dismissing her next question for more details about what happened. “It’s in the past. You don’t need to know. No one died. That’s the important thing.”

  Tammy wondered how many times he and the Guardians had averted disasters that now only existed within the pages of a journal in Unity Hall. Only a handful of people would know how many near misses there had been and in truth most people wouldn’t want to know. They slept a lot easier.

  If she’d been having this conversation with someone else, like her sister, then Tammy knew that right about now Mary would be judging her. But the Old Man knew exactly what she was struggling with as he’d been in the same position, probably more than once. He was, perhaps, the only person who could understand what she was going through.

  “I need an inquisitor,” she said, coming to a decision.

  “I can put you in touch with someone I’ve used in the past.”

  The consequences, and the weight of her actions, would be a burden on her conscience, but she would have to find a way to live with them.

  CHAPTER 25

  Taking a deep breath, Wren embraced the Source, feeling power flood her body until every part of her skin was tingling with unspent energy. On her left Danoph didn’t react, but on the other side she heard the others shifting uncomfortably. They could sense it coursing through her and thought it meant that conflict was imminent. Wren was nervous, but as their leader she was trying her best not to show it. With a small amount of effort her eyesight sharpened until the blurry landscape ahead came into focus.

  Gillen’s Jaw lay before her in the valley below. It was a quiet fishing village located beside a lake that had once been a popular place for anglers seeking a challenge. On the outskirts were a few large houses, the largest of which belonged to the previous Queen of Shael. Since her only surviving daughter, Olivia, had taken the throne the summer home and those surrounding it had mostly gone to ruin. Queen Olivia didn’t have money to waste on such frivolities. So the buildings sat idle and became a once-glorious reminder of a better time for the country and the village.

  “Why here?” asked Kimme, scratching at her armpits. Wren tried very hard not to wrinkle her nose at the girl. She didn’t have fleas, just poor personal hygiene, and would only wash when others insisted the smell kept them awake at night.

  “It might not be here,” said Wren, which was why she’d sent four groups of students, each under the guidance of a teacher, to watch for trouble at other villages. She didn’t have enough people to cover every community, but then again neither did Boros, which was what she was counting on. One raider on a horse demanding a tithe would be chased away from a village, no matter who’d sent him. Boros would have to choose his next target wisely.

  “So, can I go to sleep?” asked Kimme.

  “Only if you don’t snore again,” said Wren.

  Kimme grunted and turned away. She’d been elbowed awake at various points during the last three days for dozing off. This was the fourth day in a row Wren had been waiting for Boros to strike. She knew it was tedious and required a great deal of patience, which was why she’d rotated those who visited a different village each day. Everyone needed to know what they were fighting for, but it was difficult to remain focused all day with nothing to do.

  The first few hours were always tense, with those beside her expecting raiders to come pouring out of the surrounding hills to attack the village. When that didn’t happen, the adrenaline began to fade, tiredness crept in and muscle cramps and boredom took its place.

  Danoph always came with her. He remained a steady presence that helped her maintain the appearance of being calm. She also insisted on regularly bringing Kimme, despite her pungent aroma, as she was one of the strongest students to arrive. As a farmer’s daughter she’d regularly lifted cows and even horses above her head, moving them around like toys, and ploughing fields using only her willpower. If not for a nosey neighbour who’d rallied the village against her, Kimme would have continued doing the work of five people on the farm. Her parents had been distraught at seeing her leave, which was a rarity among children with magic.

  “There’s movement in the main street,” said Wr
en, watching as a crowd of adults started walking down the middle. Ahead of them was a woman dressed in ragged leather armour dragging a man along by his hair. The raider had a bloody dagger in one hand and Wren could see splashes of red on the man’s face and chest.

  Something flickered briefly in one of the windows of the old abandoned mansion on the hill and a frown creased her brow. She gave Kimme an order and the girl happily complied, scuttling away to the west of their position before circling back to the village. The two other students with her she sent to the east, just in case, while Danoph would come with her. He still had an ongoing struggle holding onto power when he could embrace the Source, but she didn’t need him for his strength. His instincts for people were especially useful in tense situations.

  Maintaining her grip on the Source, Wren started running towards the main street of Gillen’s Jaw. Slowly the conversation between the raider and the villagers reached her magic-augmented hearing.

  “You brought this on yourself,” the raider was saying, brandishing her dagger. “And every time you refuse Boros it will cost you another life. Maybe next time it will be one of your children.”

  Even though she was still quite far away Wren was able to reach out and wrench the blade from the raider’s hand. It flew across the street and buried itself in the front door of a nearby building. There were gasps in the gathered crowd but the raider didn’t seem alarmed. It was almost as if she’d been expecting Wren. Instead of releasing the injured man she drew another dagger and pulled him tight against her chest, pressing the blade to his throat.

  Wren stopped a short distance away from the raider and her captive. Danoph stood next to her, silent and watchful. His eyes drifted up to the roof of a nearby building and then back to the street. The gathered crowd were clearly scared for their friend, but none of them said a word.

  “Want to try that again?” said the raider. She pressed the blade to the front of the man’s throat, wrapping both arms around his neck, almost as if they were lovers. If Wren tried to yank it free it would slice open his neck.