Sorcery's Child (The Mindbender's Rise Book 2)

by D J Salisbury

  The door to the Lab’s stairwell stood open.

  His stomach slithered to the floor. No one was allowed down there. No one. How had they gotten in?

  Had he left the door unlocked when he ran for help? He couldn’t remember. Probably. Trevor’s death was still a shock, even now.

  The door couldn’t be left open. Even if it gave him away, the door must be locked.

  He’d come back someday. He’d reopen the house, the Lab, bury Trevor. He hoped nobody decided to tear the place down in the meantime.

  It was too dark to find the stairwell when the door snicked shut. Viper tucked the keys back into his jacket pocket and slid-stepped toward the center of the room, praying that he did not overstep the edge. A long fall to the bottom of the pit would end all of his problems, but that was definitely not the way he wanted them resolved.

  He wiped cold sweat out of his eyes. He already felt like something was watching him out of the darkness. Trevor’s ghost? He almost wished that might be true, but the old man didn’t believe in ghosts. It would be too funny if he hung around as one of the blasted things.

  His boots touched the edge of the drop and he knelt to feel the floor. His fingers brushed the stone until they felt a particularly smooth area.

  This spot should be just above the first step. One long step, or one long drop. No way was he going to jump down there to find out.

  He grasped the straps on his knapsack more tightly and lowered the whole bundle over the edge. It brushed against the step just at the limits of his reach – and a little to the right.

  He sighed shakily and lowered himself to the first step.

  The descent seemed endless, even longer than his climb in darkness had only a few days ago. The world moved in a never ending downward spiral of thudding footsteps, echoing in blackness darker than the dens of the ghosts he had feared so long ago.

  Why hadn’t he learned to light a will-fire? Because he was worthless as a sorcerer. He was a nameless, honorless, misbegotten, friend-murdering–

  Oh, shut up, he told himself. I don’t need that kind of noise, and none of it is true.

  He tried, unsuccessfully, to stop thinking altogether and concentrate on finding the steps.

  Really, it wasn’t that much harder than climbing down with a light. The steps were almost invisible under the best of conditions. The bottom couldn’t be too much farther.

  He continued down, and down, in a spiral of darkness and shivering sweat. Time lost meaning in the dark, and destination vanished, until he moved from step to step only because there was nothing else to do.

  At last his boot met nothingness.

  He sat down and clung to the last step with both hands, leaving his feet to dangle over the edge.

  Now what could he do?

  “Turybird!” he said aloud, and cringed at his voice echoing up and down the shaft.

  I wonder about you sometimes, child, he imagined he heard Trevor say. You might use the ladder.

  Viper felt in the niche where the rope ladder was kept. Empty. He felt along the edge of the step and found it dangling to his left.

  Wind blast it. He couldn’t remember if he pulled it up or not. Maybe Frujeur didn’t bother to put it away after he finished exploring.

  What if the cold goat was down there now? He prayed not. He’d rather not kill anybody just yet. Not even Bahtdor Nose.

  What was he waiting for? He caught a deep breath against the guardian spell and clambered down the ladder – Kraken’s hands reached for him; Frujeur’s leering face loomed over him, Trevor’s dead eye stared at him – into the luminous hallway.

  No one was in sight.

  He held his breath to listen, but heard only the thunder of blood in his ears. As quietly as he could manage with aching feet inside stiff boots, he crept down the corridor to the Lab.

  There was no mark on the door hinting anyone had tried to force it open, but he had the strangest sensation that someone had tried to get in. That someone wanted in, badly.

  In? Or out?

  He shook his head until his hair stung his cheeks, trying to rattle away his overactive imagination.

  Nausea clawed at his gut. He didn’t want to open the Lab door, to face the reality of Trevor’s death. But he had to get moving. Start planning. What else should he take? He leaned his head against the carved door while he considered the problem.

  Coins, any he could find. Trevor didn’t need them. But which books? He only had room for a few. And which maps? He’d need lots and lots of maps. As soon as he figured out where to go, he’d start traveling.

  If only Trevor were still here. He’d rather stay home with him.

  He leaned against the door and listened to the sound of tears he dared not shed, dry tears that dripped in time with his heartbeat.

  A whisper of sound echoed down the corridor. He needed to get out of the hall before someone saw him. Not that he’d ever seen anyone down here, but someone had ransacked the house. They might have made it past the guardian spell.

  He bent his will on the door. It opened silently and it closed behind him, as it always had.

  The Lab reeked of death.

  Viper gagged and clamped his hand over his mouth.

  Sewage, fermenting apples, rotting meat. Death.

  The mandolin slid to the floor near the door, almost as if it couldn’t face Trevor’s death, either. He dropped his pack and trudged across the wrecked room, sidestepping heaps of tangled books and puddles of shattered specimens. His boots crunched on broken glass.

  He’d never dreamed that Trevor could stink. Of course, he’d never seen a person after they’d been dead more than a few hours. Setoyans always fed the corpse to the bahtdor at the next dawn or dusk. It had been awful, watching his father fed his grandmother’s body to the herd.

  But he had seen other rotting things. He wasn’t sure he could bear seeing his teacher, his friend, decaying into stinky goo.

  He couldn’t leave Trevor untended. He forced his dragging feet to walk closer.

  He braced himself to face the inevitable maggots, but there weren’t any. Not even one. He inched closer to Trevor’s still body.

  That close to the corpse, the stench turned his stomach inside out. He slapped the crook of his arm against his nose and tried to breathe through his sleeve. It didn’t help. A visible mist of death hovered over the corpse like a blanket of swamp gas.

  The flesh of the old man’s face had collapsed in on itself. Wrinkled skin had turned waxy, yellowish gray, but every blue vein showed clearly. Viper couldn’t bear to look at the dead eyes. Eyes that would never laugh with him again. Never sparkle like green glass over a new book, a new map, a new idea.

  Eye. Trevor only had one eye now.

  A small, battered book lay next to the old sorcerer’s shoulder. The new grimoire. The one they’d been using when– when the world ended. When the Obsidian Mirror exploded. When Trevor died.

  Had that spell, that book, caused Trevor’s death? Had he killed Trevor by buying the grimoire?

  No, it wasn’t possible. Trevor had been so pleased with it. Thrilled with the scrying spell. It wasn’t his fault. Was it?

  Wasn’t it the fault of whatever had attacked them through the scrying spell? The evil in Shi? The mindbender?

  It wasn’t the grimoire’s fault, anyway. He plucked it out of the chaos and slid it into his pack.

  His face hovered near Trevor’s. The stone splinter stood upright in the ruined eye like a throwing knife.

  Viper shuddered. He leaned closer to the body, braced against the broken bookcase, and yanked the obsidian sliver out.

  Rotted blood burst from Trevor’s eye socket. It oozed down into the limp gray hair.

  Viper gagged and scrambled away. How could a corpse bleed? Was it just the hidden gasses Trevor had talked about? Or was it caused by something sinister, a side effect of the attack?

  How would he ever know?

  By taking the stone splinter with him. He’d ask a wizard to look
at it. But not until he was far from Zedista and Frujeur.

  For now, he needed to get moving, before he dropped from exhaustion. He staggered to the far side of the Lab, grabbed a bottle of hard cider from Trevor’s private stash, and poured apple wine into a basin. Hoping there was enough vigor in the cider to counter any evil influences, he scrubbed splinter with a stiff brush until he scoured away every trace of burnt flesh and rotted blood.

  Finally he wrapped it in three of Trevor’s old silk handkerchiefs and tucked the wad deep into his knapsack.

  Green sparks flickered from the top of Trevor’s desk.

  What was that? The remnants of the scrying spell? Frujeur said the spell would collapse on its own. Like old Bahtdor Nose was ever right about anything. But how could he be sure?

  The sparks were a long way from the explosion. And they moved as if they were alive.

  Surely Trevor would have mentioned a sprite, if he had one. His memory wasn’t that bad. Hadn’t been bad. And he’d have been proud about a captive sprite. He’d have bragged about it.

  Viper crept closer to the desk. The green sparks vanished under Trevor’s favorite notebook. A trick of the light? More likely, a hallucination caused by exhaustion. He didn’t have time to investigate more. He needed to get out of here.

  He rummaged through several chests until he found a large, cheerful quilt. Shaking so hard he could barely walk, he returned to Trevor’s body and spread the blanket over it.

  The quilt covered all of the corpse except the faded slippers. The skinny feet looked so exposed. So vulnerable.

  He couldn’t leave his teacher unprotected. But what could he do? There were no weapons down here.

  Except his sister’s honor knife.

  He hurried back to his pack and dug out the bahtdor-bone knife. He’d carved it and given it to his sister for her Knife Ceremony. She’d given it back, in love and protection, when he was Outcast. It would be a strong guardian.

  “Rest with your Weaver, Master Trevor.” He laid the honor knife on the quilt, over the old man’s heart. “Dance with the lightning.” That was all the goodbye he allowed himself. All he could bear.

  He raided several jars for coins, grabbed a random pair of maps, collected his pack and his mandolin, and crunched out of the Lab.

  As the door closed behind him, he turned to face the familiar end of the corridor. That way led back to Trevor’s home. What was the point of going there?

  But he’d never gone in the other direction. Trevor had forbidden him to wander around down here, and for some reason he’d obeyed, probably because the old man kept him too busy to go exploring. Now he wished he’d been more adventurous.

  Now he’d get all the adventure he’d ever wanted, and more. Who wanted adventure? All he wanted was a warm bed and a hot meal. A bath and a mug of sweet milky tea. And he couldn’t have any of it. Not until he found a way out.

  Once he was back in the city, he’d send a message to Faye. She’d help him. With food and shelter and a way to escape the city. Would she come with him? She might. He’d certainly ask her. He’d even beg, if she hesitated.

  Of course, Lorel had to come, too. He’d promised her they’d go traveling ages ago. But Lorel and Faye were good friends, so that wouldn’t be a problem.

  His immediate problem was getting out of here, and that wouldn’t happen as long as he stood here sleeping on his feet.

  He turned away from Trevor’s corridor and started to walk. And walk.

  And walk.

  The corridor made no turns, but he could see only a short distance ahead or behind. He found an occasional intersection, but chose to keep going straight. If he didn’t find an exit before his supplies ran low, he’d still be able to find his way back to the rope ladder.

  Just when he was ready to give up, the corridor ended at a door. It was carved like all the others he’d seen, but stood far shorter. Even he would need to duck his head. Lorel would need to crawl, if she were to come this way. Which she wouldn’t, of course. The labyrinth was Trevor’s secret.

  His breath caught in his throat. His heart stuttered.

  Trevor was dead.

  He sucked in a deep breath, leaned against the little door, and willed it open.

  After hours of walking under the magical light of the passageways, the rising sun dripped with eerie, roiling blood. Red stained the back of his eyes, throbbed against the bottoms of his feet.

  Viper dropped to his knees and closed his stinging eyes. Where was he? He needed to know before he crawled out of the tunnel. Could he tell from the faint sounds around him?

  Everything was achingly quiet. The wind rustled through the yellow-blossomed broom, and whispered through dry leaves somewhere out of sight.

  But the place seemed familiar.

  Wispy brush spread out for several feet and seemed tall enough to dwarf even Lorel. The shivering aura of an unseen rabbit scurried away. Birds swooped and whirled overhead, their bright auras glowing with joy. They began to chitter and chirp. His emergence from the tunnel must have startled them into silence.

  Should he wait until full dark, or crawl out now? Now. He wanted to know now. He couldn’t bear to hide here all day. Already he felt as if someone was watching him.

  He pushed his bulky pack out ahead of him and laid the mandolin beside it. He slithered forward on his belly, trying to disturb as little of the brush as the breeze. Finally he reached the edge of the patch of broom.

  Viper let out a silent crow of triumph. No hunters. No people at all.

  Rows of stately, silvery trees spread out as far as he could see. The olive orchard.

  He relaxed and collapsed face down in the orchard’s warm earth. He whispered chanted thanks to the Thunderer, the Wind Dancer, the Weaver and anybody else who cared to listen.

  This orchard was the ideal hiding place, for a few days, anyway. He could even see a path into the forest, far up the hill, that looked like the one he and Lorel used. He could hide in the woods, if he needed to.

  Trevor could have watched him from here, if it ever occurred to the old man that Lorel might drag him through the orchard into the wilderness. And he might have. The old sorcerer always seemed to know what mischief he’d been in.

  His throat closed up. He couldn’t breathe.

  What would he do without Trevor?

  For now, all he could do was find a place to hide. He wriggled backward to retrieve his pack and the mandolin. After willing the door to shut, he crawled out through the brush.

  The sensation of being followed vanished. Praise the Thunderer. He’d begun to think he was losing his mind, but it was only the long corridors that oppressed him.

  Silvery leaves crunched under his feet when he stepped out between the trees. He set off in search of a tree with a platform of branches to serve as a treehouse, hidden in the middle of the olive orchard.

  ˜™

  Several days later, the orchard didn’t feel ideal anymore. His stomach growled. Again.

  He crept through the dark streets, careful to avoid the gangs, the larger roads, and lit courtyards. His slow pace cost him a full half of the Racer’s dark period, and would cost him as much again to scuttle back to the orchard, but he would be safely hidden among the trees before the added moonlight betrayed him.

  A piece of bread. More than anything else, he lusted for a slice of soft, fresh, crusty, white bread. Or brown bread. Or stale bread, if that was all he could get.

  Trevor’s apples had been delicious for the first few days, but he hungered for anything different after days of nothing but apples, mushrooms, and raw grubs. Fried grubs would be nice. Bread with just a taste of butter would be divine. No more apples, if you please.

  That turybird Lorel had better get the sandblasted hint this time. Three thundering dangerous trips just to leave her a message. If that lard-brained warrior couldn’t bother to come and find him, – well! – he’d go on without her.

  If only he could talk to Faye. Lightning strike the vulture-mouthed
dog that guarded her house. Why hadn’t Trevor taught him how to deal with canines? Or any animals, for that matter.

  Lorel had to find him. He needed her to carry a message. Faye would help him if she knew how much trouble he was in.

  Viper slithered over the stone wall surrounding the courtyard. He flowed around to the side of the house, scaled the old red oak without a sigh from a leaf, crept along the edge of the second story molding to Lorel’s window.

  The turybird could see all the way up to the Trader’s Inn from up here. Why did his bedroom have only a view of tenements and nosy neighbors? The girl had all the luck.

  He stretched low, making sure no one inside the room would see him. If Lorel saw anything at her window, she’d attack. If he had to jump he’d break an arm. If he didn’t jump, she’d break his neck. Before she even woke up.

  Moving as silently as a nercat, he tucked his message into the crack between the window sill and the casing. When the Racer’s light finally touched the glass, it would dance upon a fingerling twig with tiny silver and green leaves.

  Was it possible Lorel couldn’t read his messages? She couldn’t be that dense. Could she?

  He slid down the oak and vanished into the night, fleeing toward the safety of the orchard.

  Thunderer, please inspire Lorel to bring him something to eat. On the other hand, considering her notion of good food, he hoped that she wouldn’t. He didn’t feel up to fried pork fat smothered in peppers.

  The position of the Miner showed he was right on schedule. Plenty of time to get back before the Racer rose. He was getting good at this creep and slither nonsense.

  He skulked through the town unnoticed. He imagined himself as a pale shadow, one that matched the Monitor’s golden moonlight. He didn’t bother with an illusion. Saving his magic in case a gang found him seemed smarter.

  No one shouted an alarm at his passing. No one looked for the stray youth in the street.

  He suspected no one cared.

  Chapter 10.

  A bird chattered overhead, chi chi chiii ya wheeet yur. A green finch? He rested the grimoire in his lap, leaned back against the olive tree’s trunk, and scanned its branches for a glimpse of the singer. He couldn’t see its feathers, but its aura glowed sharp blue and swirling green.