by D. P. Prior
“We can help you, Tey,” Vrom said.
“Aye,” Maela said. “I’ll cook up your favorites, make sure you never go hungry.”
Tey glared at her. It was all she could do not to spit. The color left Maela’s cheeks, and she looked to the others as if to ask what she had done wrong.
[But your well will still hunger,] the Shedim said. [Every use of sorcery comes at a great cost. Even now, it is not far from empty.]
Tey’s jaw dropped with the realization of what it was saying, and she realized the same thought had been forming below the surface of her mind, only she’d not yet looked it in the face. It was a thought she was not ready to entertain.
“You… Maela,” she said, “will run this house.”
Maela looked shocked, and for a moment Tey thought she was going to refuse. Already, the vambrace was warming upon her forearm. But then Maela nodded.
“Give everyone a job to do, and make sure I am left in peace.” To Vrom, she added, “I come out when I choose to, no exceptions. Oh, and no—”
A fierce rapping sounded from the front door.
“Visitors,” Tey finished under her breath as Hirsiga scurried away to answer the knocking.
The dining room was shrouded in silence as Tey waited to hear who it was. A dog growled, then someone shushed it. Muffled voices reached her ears—a man’s, and Hirsiga’s in reply.
Hirsiga’s feet slapping on the tiles approached. When she appeared in the doorway, she looked pale.
“Someone to see Slyndon Grun,” she said. “I didn’t know what to say. He’s waiting in the hallway.”
“Who?” Tey asked.
“He says he’s a sorcerer.”
NIGHT HAUNTINGS
Gentle wasn’t a word Snaith should have applied to his fight practice. He couldn’t do things halfheartedly. It was all or nothing with him. Beneath the star-speckled sky, he danced across the mosaic floor of the ruined hall, twirling, crouching, and kicking at shadows. His salve-numbed feet scuffed over the wyvern design the Hélumites had left as he went through his sequences one after another. Twenty-seven times he performed each move, for nine was the best of numbers, and twenty-seven was three times nine.
As he whirled about the floor space, spinning wheel-kicks and turning his hips to deliver fierce roundhouses, his shadow sparring partners swirled around him, pressing in, retreating, always managing the distance. And the more he got caught up in his exertions, the more solid his opponents grew, the more tangible. He knew it was a trick of the light, from where the rising breeze sent clouds racing across the face of the moon. And in part he knew it was his imagination, his knack for making images out of nothing. But all the same, he grew wary, more tentative in his strikes.
Gradually, he wound down, then moved to the remains of a wall and sat. His torso was slick with sweat that swiftly chilled in the night air. He wished he’d brought a towel with him, but any towels they might have had would have been in the pack he’d abandoned when they fled the Skaltoop.
Once his breathing settled, he stood and went through his stretches, all the while casting nervous glances around the ruins. Besides the whistle of the wind through the surrounding forest, it had grown eerily quiet. Snaith had an overwhelming urge to get back to the stone benches, where Theurig lay sleeping.
“Superstition is the ally of the sorcerer,” Theurig had told him and Tey back at Coldman’s Copse. “I dare say you are not immune to its taint.”
Maybe he had a point. But there was some way still to go before Snaith could consider himself a sorcerer, so jumping at shadows was probably to be expected.
But was it superstition, the way the shadows seemed to glare back at him, the way they’d mirrored his movements like partners in a dance? He tried fixing his eyes on them where they stood at points on the mosaic floor, daring them to materialize, to show themselves for what they really were. But under his stare they dissolved into nothingness, only to re-form a pace to the left, a step to the right.
A whisper from behind made him turn, heart clamoring in his chest. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he glimpsed movement out of the corner of his eye.
Snaith held his breath and waited. Off in the forest, an owl hooted. For a moment he feared it was the Skaltoop, but when there were no answering cries, he told himself it was just an owl.
Finishing off his stretches, he made his way back across the foundations of the temple, stepping over low brick walls—all that remained of corridors and rooms.
He felt sluggish, heavy. At first he thought it was the result of his training, of pushing himself harder than he had planned. But then he had the sensation of something stroking the fine hairs on the back of his neck, felt a weight clinging to him, some indiscernible presence that made his flesh crawl. Invisible fingers traced the tattoo on his chest, recoiled, then moved to the inside of his thigh. He tried swatting them away, but only hit his britches. Then he felt them again, this time on the other leg, above the knee, and there was a buzzing in his ear, a whispering in his mind. As the fingers spider-walked their way up his thigh, a voice rustled inside his head: Pleasure yourself.
With a gasp, Snaith slapped at the invisible fingers and started to run. He tripped on a half-buried brick, pitched forward, and hit the ground hard. Ghostly hands grasped at his ankles. Talons scuttled across his back. He screamed and scrambled to his feet, beating at wherever he was touched, stumbling away from the ruins.
As soon as he entered the circle with the tiered seating, the hands released him, and the fingers ceased their teasing. Heaviness fled his limbs as the clinging presence sloughed away.
He was drained and utterly exhausted, but it was a natural tiredness born from traveling and exercise. He felt suddenly foolish, a child afraid of the dark. Theurig would have thought him ridiculous, would have said he’d let his imagination run away with him.
Was that what had happened? Had tiredness and grief conspired to give substance to his thoughts and fears? He knew he had an unusual mind. No one else could build the images he could. Or was it worse than that? Was it the effect of the bear attack, the loss of his parents, the horror of the Hand of Vilchus, all catching up with him, making him crazy? Or could it be an infection of madness he’d contracted from Tey that night in the Copse, or the curse of the Weyd for what she’d done to him?
Already his feet were starting to sting again. He shouldn’t have pushed himself so hard. Patience is what he needed, if he were to rediscover perfection in the forms of fighting. Patience and consistency. And if he kept it to himself, his renewed interest in training would be the perfect counter for what he had to learn as Theurig’s apprentice. If he ever became a sorcerer, he’d be a sorcerer like no other: a wizard and a warrior. He felt certain there must be some yet-to-be revealed lore that could compensate for his injured arm. It was a thought that made him smile. A glimmer of hope he’d not dared to expect.
“Interesting book.”
Snaith started. He’d not seen Theurig there, seated beside the fire.
The sorcerer was absorbed in his reading, wetting his thumb to flick through the pages.
“That’s mine,” Snaith said, striding across the circle, fire flooding his veins.
As he reached for his father’s book, Theurig held it away from him.
“My master, Kardish, spoke of such teachings: an art of combat in which the ancestors had excelled. He mentioned a book just like this, only when he tried to find it for me, it was gone. He was, shall we say, quite angry about it.” Theurig flinched at some vivid memory. “Apparently, he’d copied it from the crumbling parchment of the original by hand. Until his dying day, he claimed his book had been stolen.”
“This is my father’s book,” Snaith said, trying to snatch it, but the sorcerer passed it behind his back. When his hand reemerged, the book had vanished.
Snaith stared at the empty hand, open-mouthed. He knew it was some form of trickery, but he had no idea how Theurig had done it.
“I recognized his
handwriting,” Theurig said. “Your father has a talent for all things to do with words, which I’m sure is where you get it from. But this book contains knowledge from the Weyd. It belongs to sorcerers alone. No mere clansman has a right to own it.”
Snaith’s good hand bunched into a fist. Tremors passed along his frame from where his muscles clenched, ready to spring. Through gritted teeth he said, “Give it back.”
“Maybe one day.” Theurig stood and stretched till his back popped. One shoulder drooped, while the other was up by his ear. Clearly, sleeping rough didn’t agree with his twisted spine.
“Now,” Snaith said.
The sorcerer narrowed his eyes. “Are you challenging me, apprentice?”
Snaith took a step toward him. Theurig’s hand came up, curled into a claw. He waggled the fingers, and instinctively Snaith backed away. He couldn’t help it. Years of believing in the terrible power of magic couldn’t be erased overnight.
Theurig lowered his hand. “Have no fear. I am not angry with you. It is understandable, your emotional attachment. But you will learn continence of the feelings as you progress in your training. You are forgiven. Now, if you don’t mind, I think I might try to get back to sleep. I just hope my spine will permit it this time. I suggest you do the same. We’ve still a fair way to go in the morning. Good night.”
The sorcerer walked back to the stone benches and lay down. He cast a few surreptitious glances Snaith’s way, then closed his eyes and once more pretended to sleep.
Snaith turned away to face the fire. He had to retain control. That was his path to victory. Theurig knew exactly how to rouse his anger, but Snaith wasn’t going to allow it this time. His body was aflame with suppressed violence; he could do nothing about that. But his mind… that was the key to controlling his feelings. In the circles he’d been able to switch off all emotion so that he could pick his opponent apart methodically, without being goaded into a mistake. He needed the same approach here. If only it were that easy.
He sat cross-legged before the dying flames, watched them jump from the blackened wood to the un-charred leaves and branches in a frantic attempt to snatch a few more moments of existence. It was no surprise to find that Theurig hadn’t bothered to add fresh deadfall to the blaze. That would have been asking too much. And Snaith wasn’t about to replenish the fire now, not with the way he felt. He just stared and stared at the flames, willing them to sear away the murderous thoughts that sliced and stabbed at his mind.
Distractedly, he ran his good hand through the stubble starting to sprout from his scalp either side of his crest of hair. It only served to irritate him further. If he’d been at home, he would have shaved it there and then. He’d half a mind to let his hair grow out, in the fashion of most of the Malogoi warriors. It was tempting. It would be a statement to Theurig, if nothing else. If hair could be magically grown in an instant, he wouldn’t have hesitated, but the thought of it taking months, if not years, was a frustration he didn’t need right now. He could do with a hood, at least until his hair had grown to the point it no longer looked ridiculous. Last thing he wanted as a trainee sorcerer was to be a laughing stock, and if anything, a hood would add to his air of mystery and menace.
Thinking about his hair was the distraction he needed, and the prospect of a solution started to calm him. As the tightness left his muscles, he lay on his side, as close as he dared to the heat of the fire. The book could wait, he told himself with grim determination. Theurig could wait. He still needed to learn the rules of this new world he was entering into. There would be so much to take in at the Wakeful Isle, he was sure; so much that he’d need Theurig’s guidance with. So, he could wait. But he couldn’t wait forever. The book was his, now that his father had no further need of it, and nothing Theurig said or did was going to change that.
As his mind grew cloudy with the onset of sleep, whispers once more filled his skull. A cold wind gusted against his back, startling him and causing him to roll over.
Nothing there. Just shadows on the edge of the circle. He stared at them for a minute, then closed his eyes and settled down. He shuddered at the memory of invisible touches and the presence that had clung to his back.
Pleasure yourself, the voice repeated in his mind. Was it a memory, too, or was there something there with him?
He opened his eyes.
Again, he saw nothing.
This time, when he tried to settle into sleep, he knew it was pointless. A memory for sure now, he kept hearing the whispered command: Pleasure yourself. Pleasure yourself.
He tossed and turned, tried to shake off the imaginings of cold, clammy hands caressing his skin. Desperate to rid himself of the sensation, desperate to sleep, he summoned his image of Tey, the simulacrum that had proven a lie. But it did not come. Instead, he saw the sultry witch Tey had become in the Copse. Felt once again the coolness of her hand. Shuddered with a mixture of desire and shame. He tried to banish her with violent lashes of his mind, but she refused to let go. As he groaned and writhed under her touch, he could no longer distinguish between Tey’s hand and his own. He tried once more to wrench himself free of her specter, but she owned him now, and he was powerless against her.
When she’d finished with him, she left quietly, of her own accord, and sleep closed in on Snaith like a hungry scavenger.
PHEKLUS THE CLINCHERMAN
“I had expected—indeed I asked for—Slyndon Grun. You know: robe, beard, a bit too much to eat.”
The figure standing in the entrance hall with his back to the open door was silhouetted, surrounded by a corona of sunlight. At first glance, he was a tall and spindly shadow to Tey, and a thread of darkness led from his closed hand to a devil dog with yellow eyes.
“Now, it may be that the young lady who answered the door to me, wearing the metal cups and very little else, is as deficient in comprehension as she is in clothing, but I am not in the habit of tolerating the exchange of one servant for another, when it is the master of the house I have come to see.”
A shift in the cloud cover, and the mirage passed. Not a shadow, but a cadaverous-looking man in a long black coat with buttons of either bone or ivory. Lank hair hung in dark strands to his shoulders. It was pushed back from protruding cauliflower ears, like warriors’ ears after years of practice in the circles. Only, this man was no warrior. In a fight he’d have snapped like a twig. He was gaunt, with sunken cheeks, and shadowed cavities surrounded eyes the color of diluted blood. He held the leash of a war-dog: stocky, powerful, drooling saliva. Unlike the man, the beast had hardly changed at all in the muted light. It was still black as pitch, its eyes jaundiced and feral.
This man unnerved Tey. Coldness emanated from him in waves, although it could have been an illusion, same as the shadow. That was what sorcerers did, wasn’t it? Created impressions, played upon the superstitions of others. As Theurig had implied back at the Copse, Tey still had a lifetime of conditioning to overcome, and the Hand of Vilchus had only served to make matters worse.
She tried to think of something to say, but all she could do was stand and stare. Footsteps behind her gave her the excuse she needed to look away.
Hirsiga entered from the corridor, Vrom following closely on her heels. They moved to either side of Tey, heads bowed, submissive, as if they feared the visitor even more than she did. But then, they were both seasoned victims. They feared everyone.
The black dog snarled at their arrival, curling back its lips to reveal dirty yellow teeth that had been filed to dagger points.
“Now, now, Gulgath,” the sorcerer said, tautening the leash. The dog dropped to its haunches, growling softly in its muscular chest. “We don’t eat the servants of friends, do we now? You know better than that.”
Gulgath whimpered and lay flat on his belly, waggling his rump and his stumpy tail.
“Ah, the culprit,” the sorcerer said, giving Hirsiga a narrow-eyed look, then indicating Tey with a jab of a slender finger. “This woman you sent me is thin. Slyndon Grun is
fat. By definition she is female. He is not.” He leaned in close to study Tey’s face. “Unless my old friend has discovered the alchemical means to transmute base matter into something altogether more… exquisite, then I have to assume you are not the man I am looking for.”
Tey stood her ground, eyes locked to his, as he extended a skeletal finger and used it to tilt her chin up. He examined her neck, traced the white line of her scar with a yellowish nail. His finger ran along the ridge of her collarbone, her shoulder, the length of her arm. He made an appreciative grunt, but it wasn’t lust she detected. This was something else.
“Tell me,” he said, “do you have Krosh blood?”
Tey frowned her incomprehension.
“My clan. I do hope Slyndon hasn’t been poaching our girls. That would be politically awkward.”
“I’m Malogoi,” Tey said.
“Really? I had no idea Theurig’s backward little savages were so… lissome. We of the Krosh have an inherent distaste for anything too fleshy. A body should have the hardness of bone, don’t you think? After all, when the worms have finished with us, is not bone all that remains? It is so much more permanent than flesh and blood, and thereby so much more important.”
Tey took a step back. Was he mocking her? Making fun of her figure? Gods, if she ate any less, she’d die of starvation. Or would she? Maybe she was just being weak, lacking in will and discipline. She made a mental note to halve her already scant portions. Perhaps she should only eat every other day.
“I’ll say it again,” the sorcerer said with a thin-lipped smile that promised infinite patience. Gulgath’s rumbling growl, however, told a different story. “I’m here to see Slyndon Grun. We have a conclave to attend, and time is a-wasting. Tell your master to slip his pox-ridden wand out of whichever grease-pot he’s oiling it in and get ready for the road. And while you’re about it, remind him he owes me an apprentice. The young lad from Malogoi.” He cocked his head to take in Vrom. “Or is that you?”