by D. P. Prior
Vrom pressed in closer to Tey, still keeping his eyes averted.
With a tremor in her voice, Hirsiga said, “You didn’t give me your name, sir. Whom shall I say is calling?”
The sorcerer tensed, then slowly rolled his head, eliciting sharp cracks from his neck. “Remiss of you not to ask when you first answered the door to me. Nevertheless, thank you for pointing out my discourtesy, though I might say the same of you. In the absence of an introduction, I have been forced to think of you as Copper Tits. Or is that brass? And you,” he said to Tey, “my emaciated beauty, what am I to call you?”
Tey tucked her chin into her chest and smiled.
“Well?” the sorcerer prompted. “You have no deformity, so I’m guessing you’re not an apprentice. What is your name?”
Tey hitched up her dress to reveal her mutilated leg.
“Oh,” the sorcerer said. “Better and better. Do you think your master will renegotiate? You for the lad?”
Tey sniggered. “I doubt it.”
“Oh?” the sorcerer said in an amiable voice. “Why’s that, then?” Without warning, he pressed his face against Tey’s. His breath smelled of loam and something metallic. Behind him, the dog barked.
Tey slid her hand in between them, used it to fish out her talisman. She clutched Slyndon Grun’s shrunken pinkie between thumb and forefinger and held it in front of the sorcerer’s eyes. He leaned back so he could focus on it, and when he did, he gasped.
“This is all that’s left of him,” Tey said.
A tic started up under the sorcerer’s eye, and deep furrows creased his brow. “I see.” With the skill of a consummate actor, he molded his face into a mask of approval and amusement. “The way he used to talk, I thought he would have been bigger than that.”
“It’s a finger, stupid,” Tey said. “Now get out.”
The sorcerer’s pinkish eyes hardened. He tugged sharply on the dog’s leash, opened his mouth to say something, but in that moment Tey flooded the vambrace on her forearm with vitriol from her well.
“Go!” she commanded.
Without hesitation, the sorcerer turned on his heel and headed for the front door, trailing Gulgath behind him.
“No, wait,” Tey said, and he stopped. “What conclave?”
“Of the sorcerers.” The words came out slow, ponderous. He did not turn around, perhaps because she had not ordered him to. “On the Wakeful Isle. The new apprentices need to be approved by the Archmage.”
[Yes,] the Shedim hissed within Tey. [You must meet the Archmage. You must impress him.]
“Why?” Tey asked, intending it for the Shedim, but it was the sorcerer who replied.
“To make sure they are acceptable.”
“He doesn’t trust the sorcerers’ choices?” Tey asked. “Tell me more.” She could feel the power of her well bleeding away—all that remained of Slyndon Grun, save his pinkie and what the seagulls hadn’t yet devoured. “Everything you know about this conclave.”
“Those that are found worthy by the Archmage will take the pledge of allegiance. Then they will return home to commence their training.”
“And you,” Tey said, thinking on her feet, conscious she had only seconds remaining. “What is your name?”
“I am Pheklus, known as the Clincherman, Necromancer of the Krosh.”
The last few dregs of power…
“Necromancer? What does that even mean?”
“That there is a way for the dead to be returned to life.”
“And you know of it?”
“It is my passion.”
Not an answer. An evasion. Was the fault with her question, or had Pheklus adapted somehow, found a way to resist the vambrace’s compulsion? “What else?” Tey asked. “What do you know about magic and the Weyd?”
The power of her well trickled away to nothing. The vambrace grew cool and inert on her forearm.
Pheklus the Clincherman turned slowly to face her, a bemused expression on his face. He shook his head, blinking, then reached down to pet his growling dog.
“What else do I know about magic?” He chuckled. “More than many, less than some. I might ask the same of you. What was that you were using, an artifact from Hélum? Some kind of mind control, yes? Where do you draw your power from? Why did you stop?”
Tey instinctively put her hands behind her back, in spite of the vambrace being covered by her sleeve. She chose not to answer his question, keep him guessing.
“You say you had an alliance with Slyndon Grun,” Tey said. “I offer you the same. You’ve seen what I can do. Take me to this conclave.”
Pheklus pursed his lips, thinking. After a long moment, he said, “You have your story prepared for the Archmage?”
“I’ll think of something.”
Pheklus chuckled. “Yes. Yes, I’m sure you will. And if I refuse?”
“Then I will command it.” She held his gaze, kept her face devoid of expression. Would he know she was bluffing? Could he?”
“You have discovered other secrets, I assume?” Pheklus said.
Tey raised an eyebrow. Let him make of that what he would.
“Thought as much. Well, I have secrets of my own. Understood? Try that mind-control thing on me again, and I will cause you to decompose in the time it takes me to snap my fingers.” He did so to illustrate.
Tey had a feeling he was bluffing, too, but there was enough of a doubt to keep her guard up, and so she continued her charade. “Whatever you do, I will counter.”
“I am deadly serious, lady,” Pheklus said. Gulgath bared his jagged teeth and growled.
“As am I.”
The air between them grew thick with menace, until Pheklus suddenly relaxed and smiled.
“Then I agree. And I have to say, I’m relieved. The thought of spending time on the road with that overbearing, fat, pompous… git,” he said, observing Tey tuck the talisman back inside her dress, “was about as appealing as the contents of Gulgath’s intestines.”
The dog’s ears pricked up, as if he knew he was being spoken about.
“So, are you coming as an apprentice, or Slyndon Grun’s usurper? My understanding is the Archmage is not at all against such things. If the latter, you might want to bring along an apprentice of your own. He’ll see that as a positive.”
“I’ll come with you, Tey,” Vrom said.
“No,” Pheklus said, “you’re coming with me. Agreements are binding, even if the person I made it with is now no more than a shriveled finger.”
“Let me,” Hirsiga said to Tey. “I could be your apprentice.”
Tey looked at her dumbly for a moment, wanting to admit she had nothing to teach. But did any of them, these sorcerers? Wasn’t it all just lies and misdirection? Not all, she reminded herself. Not if the vambrace was anything to go by. And it stood to reason others may have learned what the Shedim had taught her. Surely she wasn’t the only one.
“Good,” Pheklus said. “Then that’s settled. Slyndon promised me provisions, too. Nothing much. I eat only sparingly.” He beamed at Tey. “I’m sure you understand.”
“Arrange it,” Tey said to Hirsiga. At the same time, she had the thought that she should prepare more of the truth powder and moonshine mixture. It had helped, undeniably. Without it, she’d have remained frozen, locked within herself, incapable of acting.
“And tea,” Pheklus said, handing Gulgath’s leash to Vrom and gesturing for Tey to lead him into the house. “Have your servants brew some tea before we go. Sharpens the mind, lifts the spirits. But tell me first, what am I to call you? You failed to answer last time.”
Tey stopped in the doorway, watching Hirsiga retreat down the corridor. She glanced back at Vrom gingerly holding the dog’s leash, then met Pheklus’s gaze coldly.
“I am Tey Moonshine, once of the Malogoi, now Witch of the Valks.”
***
“You know about the tunnels?” Tey said, as Pheklus the Clincherman ordered Vrom into the bracken to open the domed metal lid s
he and Slyndon Grun had exited on the journey from Malogoi.
Around them, the woodland had grown still, save for the distant sound of surf on the shore beneath the cliffs.
Pheklus pulled a folded piece of parchment from his coat pocket and handed it to her. Not parchment, Tey realized: vellum, made from the skin of some animal. She shook it open—a map, roughly drawn in flaking, brownish ink.
Blood.
An icy clump formed in her guts.
And the vellum was human skin.
Hirsiga peered over Tey’s shoulder, bowed by the weight of the pack of provisions Maela had prepared for the journey. She’d switched her metal cups and the strip of cloth between her legs for a plain woolen dress and sturdy boots that seemed too big for her.
Vrom carried his pack with greater ease, despite the way he’d grumbled about the burden since they left the house. He no longer seemed the sweet boy Tey remembered from Malogoi. His every utterance annoyed her now, as if he were always angling for sympathy or trying to elicit attention.
Pheklus knelt to scratch his evil-looking dog behind the ear. “They go on for miles, a network of passageways and chambers that spans most of southern Branikdür. As far as I’m aware, Slyndon was the only sorcerer besides me with an extensive map. His was a copy I gave him in exchange for access to a rare tome on the Gardener pictograms found inside the pyramids of Necras. The copy may or may not have been entirely accurate. Mine, however, is the original, handed down from sorcerer to sorcerer of the Krosh.”
Gulgath panted, then rolled onto his back for a tummy-rub.
The map had all the complexity of a maze. There were chambers at various positions within the labyrinth, and crosses topped with numerals that presumably marked the ways in and out.
Pheklus insinuated himself between Tey and Hirsiga. “We’re at 423.” He pointed at one cross then slid his finger along to another in the middle of what looked like empty space. “And this is where we exit: the Wakeful Isle. We pass right underneath Lake Pleroma.”
“But there are creatures in the tunnels,” Tey said.
“Which is where Gulgath comes in, don’t you, boy?” Pheklus tugged on the leash, and his dog rolled to its feet, barking excitedly.
“Swore I’d never go down there again,” Vrom said, glaring into the shaft. Ghostly light from the crystals set into the walls spilled out of the opening.
“Slyndon Grun brought you this way, too?” Tey asked.
Vrom nodded, remembering.
Hirsiga resituated her pack, wincing from where it chafed her shoulders. She looked deep into the trees of the forest, as if considering her options. When she spoke, she could have been talking to herself. “I’d sooner we went across country.”
“Then don’t let me stop you,” Pheklus said. “If you don’t get eaten by the Wolvers, the Skaltoop will likely turn you into a pair of shrunken breasts. And then, of course, there’s the matter of navigation. Does anyone besides me have a clue how to get to the Wakeful Isle?”
The sorcerer’s question was met with silence.
“As I thought. Well, then, apprentice,” Pheklus said to Vrom, “lead the way.”
***
Pheklus designated Tey map-reader. Apparently he didn’t see too well. Something to do with the condition that colored his eyes pink and left his skin looking bloodless. The same couldn’t be said for his cauliflower ears, though. They were the result of beatings he took as a child. His clan viewed his affliction as a curse and treated him accordingly. Once he became a sorcerer, though, no one mentioned it again. He was quite open about his past; wittered on endlessly about it as they traversed equally endless tunnels. He even mentioned that Tey reminded him of his sister. It gave Tey the impression he was nervous, and doing his best not to let on. Either that or he was fishing for information, disclosing things of no consequence in the hope she would reciprocate. If that was the case, he was going to have to try again. She’d never been much of a talker, and down here, with the unearthly light from the crystals, the flitter of shadows, and the occasional groan or gibber from the intersecting passages they passed, she was even less inclined to make inane conversation.
Her leg felt stiffer than ever, no more than a dead weight. She moved with staggered lunges that had her breathing as though she’d been for a run. Not that she ever went running, even before the bear attack. Maybe as a child, but those times were hard to remember.
Pheklus, Vrom, and the dog kept getting ahead, then waiting for Tey and Hirsiga to catch up. Tey wanted to think Hirsiga held back out of concern for her, but in truth it was probably the weight of her pack. It ill-suited Hirsiga’s lithe frame, carrying such a burden. The woolen dress she’d adopted had damp patches beneath her arms, between her legs. Her forehead was slick with sweat that glistened in the pale light, but it wasn’t sweat Tey smelled on her; it was a scent she’d not noticed back at the house: musk and honeysuckle, same as Branny Belgars wore to attract the widowers back in Malogoi. Hirsiga must have smothered herself in perfume while they were preparing to leave.
Once or twice, scuffs behind alerted Tey to dark shapes creeping along the passage in their wake: the same gangly monstrosities she’d seen with Slyndon Grun. There was something tormented about their swollen faces, featureless save for a gash of a mouth and a plate-sized red eye so bright it seemed to be lit from within. The instant Pheklus came back toward Tey and Hirsiga, with Gulgath barking and growling, the creatures loped away into the shadows.
Nevertheless, in spite of the dog’s protection, Tey found herself planning what she could do to defend herself. She should have been terrified, the same as Hirsiga looked, but since she’d ceded the Witch Woman more control, fear was no more than a childish memory. With enough power, she could have put her talisman to the test. She had an inkling it would channel her well’s essence into something destructive. Problem was, her well was dry, and it was a dryness that felt like hunger pangs. As if now she’d awoken its potential, it cried out to be fed. It was a disturbing thought, knowing that the Shedim wanted her to kill again. There had to be another way.
Maybe Pheklus would know of one, although how could she talk to him without the Shedim overhearing? It wasn’t worth the risk, she decided. Chances were, Pheklus was a charlatan in the mold of Theurig. Slyndon Grun would have been a better choice to ask; he’d been on the brink of understanding something about genuine magic, but even he had known less than she already did.
Just thinking of Grun reminded Tey of the vambrace she’d taken from him. Surely, the way that worked—focusing her commands through the patterns etched into its metal—it had to double as an amplifier, like the lunula the Shedim had shown her in its cavern of coal. If it did, was there a way she could use it to amplify her own essence and direct it through the talisman? Would that enable her to defend herself without draining herself completely dry in the process?
It made her want to activate the vambrace and the talisman at the same time, see if she could link them somehow, but how much of her essence would that require? What if she didn’t have enough left for when she really needed it?
Only her scars seemed to function with no loss of essence from within. Why was that? Because they were designed to leech the essence from a victim, not project it outwards from her well? Because the victim provided the energy for their own depletion?
Tey shook her head to clear it. She’d never been much of a clear thinker. That was Snaith’s specialty. Her mind was driven by torrents of feeling, not measured deduction; the same feelings that buffeted her from one persona to the next, always struggling for control but never really achieving it. She felt like a tiny boat at the mercy of a stormy sea.
Before she realized what she was doing, she’d opened her satchel and was reaching inside for one of the six potions she’d prepared before leaving the house. She’d doubled the truth powder, but diluted the moonshine with water. At first she’d considered leaving the moonshine out altogether, but she’d worried the powder alone might not be enough.
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It was only Hirsiga’s surreptitious glance that gave Tey pause. She didn’t like the way the woman shadowed her. Of course, it could have been that Hirsiga was simply being an observant apprentice, but Tey couldn’t help thinking it was an attempt to glean secrets, to get to know her inside out, in the hope of gaining some advantage. After all, it’s exactly what she would have done.
She refastened the satchel and wished there was some way she could increase her pace and leave Hirsiga behind. If nothing else, the stench of musk and honeysuckle was starting to get up her nose, literally as well as figuratively.
Some way ahead, Pheklus and Vrom called a halt then waited for Tey and Hirsiga to catch up. The passageway beyond where they stood was dark, and Tey could hear the drip, drip, plop of water.
“The wall crystals have been shattered,” Pheklus said, “and it sounds like there may be flooding. Is there another route?”
Tey pulled out the map from her satchel, suppressing a sigh and turning her back when Hirsiga tried to see over her shoulder. “If we double back, take a right, then another, then a left.”
Pheklus nodded. “Unless they’ve darkened those corridors as well. This has all the hallmarks of a trap.”
Tey shrugged. “Does that frighten you?”
“Me?” Pheklus affected a malign grin. “Not at all. It’s you lot I’m worried about, although worry is probably stretching it.”
The dog began to bark into the darkness of the passage, and he strained at his leash.
“Not a good idea, Gulgath,” Pheklus said, and there was no mistaking the quaver in his voice as he tugged the dog the other way. “Good boy. Come on now.”
A chorus of gibbering started out of the gloom, and Pheklus bustled past Tey and the others, dragging Gulgath with him. This time, he didn’t wait for Tey and Hirsiga to keep up. When they reached the first righthand turn, the sorcerer was out of sight.
At least Vrom showed his Malogoi colors, which came as something of a surprise. He offered Tey the support of his shoulder, and with his help she was able to move much faster. Hirsiga kept pace with them, apparently drawing new strength from her fear.