Magience: second edition

by Cari Silverwood

  There was something important about that halo. Later – she would worry about it later.

  She smiled back at Pascolli, closed her eyes and breathed, existing for the first time in a while without the acid company of guilt souring her being. A word, a sound, echoed softly inside her head. Over and over she heard it: time...time...time...time.

  A wet tongue slurped across her mouth. Spitting and wiping at her mouth, she sat up groggily. She had fallen asleep on the bench with her haversack for a pillow. Gangar sat before her, laughing, tongue lolling out.

  “Not funny. Ugh!”

  Someone had left her a covered bowl of stew – long gone cold. Starving, she ate it all.

  Hours had passed. The moons were up, she was cold and her hands ached. When she looked down she saw the spots on the backs of her hands, and the swollen joints on her fingers. Both were signs of aging. The halo around Gangar was bright to her eyes...as my death approaches the halo changes color. Dost’s words. She shouldn’t be able to see it, should she?

  “He was right.” She sighed. “Old age.” The truths slotted into place. “I’m using my own life force. I’m killing myself. The gods are mocking me.” If she tried to heal Dost the chances were it would kill her. She stayed there for a while with her arms wrapped around her waist, thinking. She’d healed him once. The stopper inside the satin bag dug into her fingers. Her mother’s perfume vial had been in there – smashed on the same day she’d changed Dost. A coincidence, or more?

  Only the crickets and frogs in the garden remained to keep her company. One by one the lanterns burned the last of their oil and went out. The silent stars looked down on her, distant and disdainful. Somewhere nearby a sitar player began to play a dreadful song composed of long and mournful notes. The frogs, perhaps in shock, grew quiet before resuming their croaking, only twice as loud, as if they’d decided to have a party among the garden beds. She sighed.

  “Dreg it,” she muttered. “If I can’t sit here being tragic in peace, I’ll have to do something else.”

  She retied the straps of her sandals twice and gingerly checked that the dartzinger wouldn’t go off unexpectedly. Would the Grakks let outsiders join them? Not that she wanted to fight a war. She wanted to stop it all. She hadn’t known how much she wanted that until the last two days but now that she did...well, she wanted it to happen with all her being. Alas, the closer she got to it the more it seemed as if stopping a war would be harder than stopping a boulder plummeting down a mountainside.

  A boy ran past, giving her no more than a single startled glance before continuing into the Hall. By the time she reached it people were coming out through the double doors with worried expressions on their sleep-drugged faces. In muted, desperate tones orders were being given.

  “Get the rest of the stuff out of here to Foscar’s house!”

  “The plans are still here!”

  “We’ll need a few to defend this place to let the others get away! Find them, no one who’s married or got little ones, mind! Who’s this?” The last was said by a man with bright-red fingernails who wore a fine gray silk suit. He glared suspiciously at her.

  “She’s okay,” said another man. “Haddrash vouched for her.”

  He did? If these were criminals then Haddrash was in it up to his eyeballs.

  “Sir.” The messenger boy she had seen earlier stopped Mr. Fingernails. “There’s more, sir, for you to pass on to Mr. Gouge. They said to tell you a Mr. Dost has been caught trying to kill the Imperator.”

  “Okay. I’ll do that.”

  She frowned. Dost? Could he mean the same man? She moved toward them but Sakena came between them.

  “Come with me!” she whispered. “I have important things to say to you!”

  Puzzled, she followed Sakena into the garden, away from the ant-heap hustle.

  “What is it? I have to find out – ”

  “Listen, there’s two separate forces moving in on us – Immolators and some men of Frope’s. It may be already too late to get out.” She showed her teeth. “How was I to know Gouge had a big attack planned on the gheist weapon depot?”

  “Oh? He does?” What was Sakena getting at? “We should get out of here then.”

  She laughed bitterly at that. “How much do you value your own hide? Gouge and his men are an accidental extra in the bag. They’re after you.”

  There was an obvious problem with that information. Sakena seemed to know more than she should.

  “Yeah.” Again her teeth showed like a small predator found in its lair. “Come with me and we can save all of them.” She lifted her head to nod in the direction of the pyramid.

  “I can get you safely to the Imperator’s men, so you don’t get mistaken for target practice. Not Frope, course, unless you want to be dead. The guard said the Imperator just wants to talk to you about your dirty little mage abilities, and don’t think you can tell on me or the deal’s off.”

  Ellinca narrowed her eyes. “There’s a reward, isn’t there? You want me to give myself up to let you profit from it?”

  She grinned back. “So it’s no deal then. You’ll let ’em all die? Getting caught with the stuff back there is the death sentence. And, see, I know this’ll delay the Imperator’s men and that’ll be enough time.”

  Ellinca looked back but no one had overheard. “What are they to me? But you, you’re a traitor, a dirty traitor to your own people.”

  Sakena’s eyes turned hard, her words spat out like spears. “I happen to know that one person you know will be in the rearguard. I didn’t mean for all them to get caught. ’Sides, you try being so poor you’ve got to eat from the trash heaps, so poor you think about selling yourself to get a good meal, so poor your ma kills herself to get away. Enough talk. Is it on?”

  “Who are you talking about? Haddrash? These aren’t just crims, are they? They’re some sort of Grakk resistance?”

  “Course they are.”

  The world was turning to rubbish in front of her. Everything she valued was going rotten. Bad things came in threes, or was it fours? It would be her Dost involved in the assassination. Her stomach sank and, for once, it wasn’t due to revulsion at the thought of touching him. She couldn’t bear to contemplate the idea of him being hurt. Really, he wasn’t such a bad sort, as far as being noble and good and damn near right all the blasted time. Scum.

  Why, he’d be involved, the gods only knew, but maybe if she could get near the Imperator she could do something about it. Maybe. If it was true that he only wanted to talk. Blissman said the Imperator turned a blind eye on his activities. She closed her eyes for a moment.

  “Yes. It’s on.”

  “Good. Give me that dartzinger. You won’t need it.”

  Slowly, deliberately, she shook her head then turned and jogged to a pile of crates that were next in line to be hauled away and placed it on top, whispering, “Bye, Dogrose.” Funny, she really regretted having to leave it. The dartzinger had a strange lethal prettiness.

  Sakena merely raised an eyebrow when she returned. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 23

  Closing In

  Sakena hadn’t been quite as smart as Ellinca thought. Before they could reach the Imperator’s men, they ran into others who could only be Frope’s. Three men had turned into the crossways ahead, well-armed and armored.

  “Follow me,” whispered Sakena and she slid into the blackest of the dark shadows of the street.

  Ellinca hesitated a second; warm fur and smooth scales brushed beneath her hands. A large wet tongue rasped across her skin. Gangar.

  Hands clamped down on her neck. “Remember me?” The lieutenant’s voice came from behind and above. She whirled and thrust her elbow upward, sinking it into his flesh. He grunted but did not let go.

  His hands tightened on her throat. She jabbed backward again, hoping to hit somewhere painful but this did nothing to stop him.

  “Over here!” he yelled. She sank to her knees, gasping for breath, pulling at his hands – gettin
g no further than bending a finger. Something pushed past her, all warm hair and scales and smell of dog. Gangar’s teeth crunched bone.

  The lieutenant screamed and released her. She hesitated, torn. Should she stay to make sure Gangar could also get away or run like mad? He had the lieutenant pinned on the ground and writhing.

  How did one command a tuskdog? “Gangar. Come!”

  He growled once then, to her astonishment, let go.

  “Come!”

  She fled, sprinting straight across the street and into an alleyway. No use now in sticking to the shadows. She had to get as far as she could before they came after her. Out the alley and round the next corner... A horse, she needed a horse!

  Her feet slid and she came to a stop. Before her was a silent procession, a running procession, men in orderly rows, with strangely muffled footsteps. In a blink they were past her, around her, still in their evenly spaced ranks. They halted.

  Immolators. She recognized them from the tattoos on their sculpted muscles. Not yet fully activated – only some of the pins driven home and no blades attached – just enough to make them a little faster, a little stronger. Gangar weaved through the men to her side.

  A carriage pulled up. The horses had cloth-wrapped hooves. A tall man stepped down – stern, over-bearing, with creases on his face like ravines and sculpted wings of gray hair on either side of his face.

  Her fears coalesced into an ugly lump that stirred in her gut. This was a mistake. She looked quickly about, despairing. Even Gangar would not be enough to stop twenty Immolators. Was this the frying pan or the fire?

  “You, I gather, are Ellinca. I am the Imperator’s first advisor, Thollemew Smythe...” he began, only to look up as a horde of Frope’s men rounded the corner, spreading out as they saw the Immolators and halting there in the street. The street lights splashed a bluish sheen on the metal of their weapons. The Immolators stayed quiet, unmoving.

  She watched through the gap between two of them as Hilas Frope’s men parted to let him through. He stalked toward her until the Immolators barred his way.

  “Hello, my dear.” He flashed her a chilly smile. “Ah! Thollemew! Thank you for catching her.”

  He seemed undaunted by the presence of the Immolators, looking terribly fashionable in his frock coat, mauve satin vest and tan boots. From his belt hung the leather canister that held the trinketton lizard as well as the gheist pistol and a jeweled rapier. He was as relaxed and as jaunty, as someone off on a picnic.

  Thollemew Smythe’s steady voice interrupted her thoughts. “I am doing tests on this one, Hilas. Perhaps you can have her another day.”

  “Oh, no. I must insist.” His voice was quiet. “This one is too wily, too slippery. She’s already slithered past me twice. That beast of hers has wounded one of my men. The sooner execution is accomplished the better. As the Imperator’s Finder, I insist.”

  If she could move back while they talked, work her way to the last row, perhaps... The iron hand of an Immolator descended on her shoulder. Smythe flicked a frown at her, whispering, “Be still. You’re safer with me.”

  He looked at Frope, squaring his shoulders as if a decision had been made. “No. Not this time, Hilas. This is by the Imperator’s orders. She comes with me. He wishes her brought to him.”

  “Ah-ha. Thollemew! Tut-tut. You lied to me. But I have uncovered the truth, you know. Or...some of it.”

  Frope stood with arms akimbo, hands hooked in belt. He surveyed the ranks of the Immolators, his head swiveling like a trinketton with his eyes hidden behind the blue spectacles. His men shuffled about. They were ready to move, to attack if he so much as crooked a finger the right way. An aura of impending violence stretched the seconds to an eternity.

  Is this how a rat felt when caught between two cats? But she missed something. The Imperator wanted to see her and somehow...somehow she became ever more certain Hilas Frope had already known of this and he didn’t want her to get there.

  “Truly this...distresses me. Very well. I’ll see you again soon enough, Thollemew. Things are developing nicely.” Plain words that sounded threatening. Once more he smiled at Ellinca, bowed then slowly backed away.

  Reluctantly she boarded the carriage. Despite Thollemew Smythe’s protests Gangar clambered in and hopped onto the rear-facing seat opposite her. He licked his chops thoroughly before settling into the cushions with a sigh of contentment. His legs stuck out over the edge.

  “Ugh.” Thollemew Smythe curled his lip. Ducking his head, he joined them in the carriage then locked the door. After some hesitation he sat beside Ellinca.

  She got up and squeezed onto the other seat in the little space Gangar had spared. Anger, relief, apprehension and a tinge of sadness chased about inside her head. Where would this all end? She was beginning to feel like one of those balls the nobles batted back and forth when playing racquets.

  While the carriage turned and rolled away Hilas Frope watched them go. She thought about waving to him but it would be a stupid, taunting gesture, and the man certainly didn’t need any encouragement to detest her. Ellinca leaned out the window and waved anyway. She grinned at his infuriated expression.

  After a bit, Thollemew Smythe elbowed her out of the way and clipped down all the window shades. They traveled in flickering darkness. The internal trink light was off. Since Thollemew Smythe showed no inclination to turn it on or talk, and she was not going to be the first one to speak, Ellinca closed her eyes to slits and concentrated on working out what in the gods’ names was going on.

  Chapter 24

  An Audience with the Imperator

  After ten or fifteen minutes she realized they were not heading to the palace after all. Outside there came soldierly voices and a rhythmic clanging then the screeching of metal joints. It sounded as if they passed through one of the lesser city gates. The carriage continued, their passage smooth enough to mean they still traveled a well-tended roadway.

  “Are you wondering where we are going?” asked Thollemew Smythe.

  The awful silence between them had subsided into an almost comfortable ignorance of each other. Ellinca glowered at him from beneath her brow until once more the silence stretched out dangerously, like a tightrope going off into the unknown. Any reply she made might send her plummeting into an abyss.

  Against her back she felt Gangar start to pant. He was warm, soft and reassuring. Why had he left Dost? It seemed more and more likely Dost was in trouble. And what worried her, almost as much was that she was thinking of Dost as a person rather than a bludvoik.

  “Yes. You said you were the Imperator’s First Advisor.”

  “Indeed, I am. I have been instructed to find you and take you to see him.”

  She sat trying to be a statue, unmoved and superior, but found she was digging her fingernails into her legs. “Why me?”

  His eyes were watery and red. He closed them and leaned back. “I am tired. I will say nothing more.” He wrapped his cloak around himself.

  “Wait. I need to know something. Doster ex Burgla’le, is he still alive?”

  He didn’t bother opening his eyes and spoke in a lifeless tone. “He was. Now he is a bludvoik.”

  “I heard that someone tried to kill the Imperator.”

  He cleared his throat and swallowed. “Yes. That is true. Doster surrendered to the Imperator’s guard yesterday. He is being held pending the Imperator’s final decision.”

  “Why would Dost try to kill his father? It doesn’t make sense... Where are we going?” They had it wrong. Dost would not have done this.

  This time he remained silent. The carriage rumbled steadily onward.

  Quietly she bent back one edge of the window shade and peeked out. Horsemen rode in a column a few yards out and an Immolator jogged right alongside. Ellinca released the shade.

  They were headed north. She was going to meet the Imperator. A few weeks ago she would have been impressed, perhaps terrified by that prospect. Now she was more tired than scared.


  Toward dawn she woke with a start. Her pillow was soft and hairy, and breathed. She picked some hair from her mouth and sat up without opening her eyes. It was several groggy minutes before she remembered where she was – in the carriage. Thollemew Smythe still slept peacefully across from her. For once she wished she liked wearing hats, for then she might have a hat pin to stick him with.

  From the angle of the floor they must be climbing a slope. She quietly unclipped the window shade and rolled it up. A thick forest hemmed in against the road backlit by gray morning light. So they were still going north. Perhaps four or five hours of travel...

  The most obvious destination north of Carstelan was the Winter Palace, called that because it was traditionally the residence of the Imperator in wintertime. A trip with his family to the nearby volcanic springs was supposed to be a favorite in those cold months, or what was left of his family. The Imperatress had died two years ago and he was now down to four sons and one daughter, or rather three sons, one bludvoik and one daughter. This made it all the more strange that no one appeared to have noticed all those weeks ago that Dost had gone missing.

  Outside, the forest looked invitingly thick – somewhere easy in which to get lost. Outside were also the horsemen and the Immolators. Ellinca jiggled the door handle. Locked – and Thollemew Smythe had the key hidden on him. She would wait. Would it would be wiser to approach the palace secretly and on her own? Perhaps the escort would stray, perhaps the road would narrow and the forest draw closer.

  The forest thinned and went away to the south. Past a solid fortified wall and gate was revealed half a mile of flat grassland and, on the horizon, a thin rim of white slowly grew upward – the Winter Palace. Being firmly inside the secure borders of the Burgla’le Empire, the Imperator kept no large protective force here, or so it was said. Just servants, the Immolators and a few hundred of his Imperial Guard.