by Layton Green
He looked around as if he had spoken a forbidden name, and Will took the chance to talk. “Where’re we going?” Will said. “What are these things? I mean, I assume they’re goblins—”
“Rucka, where are you from? Goblins have the ears, tuskers the snouts. Tuskers can smell for miles. That’s probably how they found you.”
Nope, they pretty much spotted our campfire from a mile away.
“It’d take two goblins to equal a tusker. Maybe three. And a brute like Grilgor?” He shuddered and inched closer. “Strong as a gorofant. We ran across a pack of leggers in the Eighth, and I saw him rip one apart with his bare hands.”
“Thanks for that. Listen . . . I’ve heard rumors we’re headed to a mine?” Will didn’t want to give away his odd ability to understand tusker speech.
“My guess is Fellengard Mountain. Plenty of other mines in the Ninth, but everyone knows The Protectorate—” he snorted “—the Congregation—is hoarding tilectium like a barrow fiend.” He cocked his eyebrow. “Suspicious, I know. Something’s brewing, and everyone knows it. Aike.”
“I don’t get it,” Will said.
“Get what?”
“The connection between the tuskers, the mines, and the Congregation.”
Dalen’s mouth opened in soundless mirth. “You think the Congregation would let tuskers operate east of the Ninth? Who do you think pays them? For the last year the slavers—tuskers, goblins, trolls—have been picking up strays and outcasts from the First on down, and carrying them to the mines.”
“Where they disappear,” Will said.
“Where they disappear,” Dalen said grimly. “That’s why I wanted to talk.”
“To tell me I’m about to disappear? I’ve got that covered.”
“To tell you we have to escape. I was impressed with the way you handled Marek.”
Will looked around the silent camp before he spoke. “You have a plan?”
“Aike. Not yet. But if Fellengard is the destination, we have to think of something before we get there. Because no one escapes that mountain.”
-8-
As the black sash thugs closed in, Val froze like an exposed rabbit. With trembling hands, he backed away and slipped the Ring of Shadows on his finger. His assailants whirled in confusion when he disappeared into the gloom.
“Where’d ’e go?”
“ ’E is a wizard.”
Val scrambled to the side of a building, knowing if they shone a light on him the effects of the ring would be negated. He turned to see what looked like buckets of blood spilling over Mari’s fingers. At least ten men and women had gathered around her like crows, pawing through her clothing and removing her jewelry. The rest of the gang milled about in a wide circle, peering into the darkness.
“ ’E’s not a wizard, fools,” the leader said. He snarled and wrapped his bloody stump with his sash. “Do ye think a wizard would let us live after that? ’E’s got a potion or a ring. Get the light stick!”
One of the women whipped a short, battered stick out of a cloth bundle, shook it until it glowed, then handed the rod to the leader. Val shrunk against the building as the stick emitted a cone of light in a ten-foot radius. The gang leader whisked the light back and forth as he advanced, his movements jerky. “Where are ye, knave? Ye’ll pay for me hand in spades, ye will.”
Mari’s face had lost all color. She lay crumpled on her side, unmoving. Val burned with an anger so intense it threatened to overwhelm him, blurring his vision and dumping adrenaline into his system like water from a burst dam. He reached deep for the magic, willing it to consume his enemies in a burst of fire, not having a name for the spell but knowing he had to help Mari.
Focus and release, he remembered, trying to concentrate through the chaos. Focus and release. Dig deep and find the magic and focus and release and focus and release and
Nothing happened.
Not the barest of sparks, not the whisper of a breeze. After trying again with the same result, he had to dive away from the approaching cone of light. As the thugs advanced in his direction, Val was forced to back away, deeper into the alley.
The hard truth was that he couldn’t access his limited magic at will, especially not in the press of battle. His only weapon was his staff, and Val was no warrior. As soon as he attacked someone they would swing the light around. Even if he reached Mari, he only had the one ring.
But he couldn’t just leave her. He slipped off the ring and let the men see him disappearing down the street, then doubled back at the next intersection and raced around the block, back to Mari. The street gang had moved on by the time he arrived, leaving her alone on the street, sprawled on her back like a discarded toy.
Her breaths were short and quick and far too shallow. He took her hand and pocketed the Ring of Shadows, so she could see him. “I’m here, Mari. Stay with me.”
She moaned, and he eased her head into his lap and stroked her hair. “I just wanted to see the magic,” she managed to whisper, and then her breathing stopped and her body seemed to deflate.
Val tried to revive her, pumping on her chest and blowing oxygen through her lips, over and over.
She was gone.
“There he is! I told ye he’d go back!”
Val jerked his head up and saw the street gang rushing towards him, still led by the scarecrow in the green top hat. The adrenaline rushed back in, and Val rose, ready to cleave the leader in two with his staff and accept the consequences.
With a shudder, he stepped away from Mari and slipped the ring back on. His colleague was dead, he couldn’t win this fight, and there was a chance his brothers were still alive and needed him.
The leader of the gang was seconds away, sweeping the cone of light from side to side. “ ’E went this way,” he said, a dozen of his men right behind him. “I can smell ’is strange perfume.”
Val ran.
Frightened and exhausted and filthy, his stomach lurching whenever he thought about Mari, Val stumbled through the slum for hours, unable to believe how large it was. His Ring of Shadows in place, he slunk through the nightmarish ghetto like a feral cat, jumping at every sound and movement.
The Ring of Shadows was not a true ring of invisibility, and as the first hues of dawn appeared, Val looked down in horror as his form adumbrated in the soft morning light.
He turned a corner and looked up, seeing a sight that made him shiver with relief. At the edge of his field of vision, a line of glow orbs emitted a pale halo of light. Glow orbs meant safer environs. As the sunlight strengthened and his form continued to solidify, he sprinted to escape the slum, waving his staff like a banshee at the few beggars who raised up as he passed.
A wide cobblestone boulevard separated the blighted neighborhood from the nicer one defined by three story brick townhomes and oak-lined streets lit by the gentle radiance of the glow orbs. Not until Val was safely across the boulevard did he stop to catch his breath. After making sure no one was watching, he removed the ring.
He decided to walk down the wide avenue rather than delve into the residential neighborhood. A few tradesmen, bakers and blacksmiths and general store owners, paid Val no mind as they swept the walkways in front of their shops. Trying to block the last image of Mari from his mind, nervous about his staff and exotic clothing, Val hugged the side of the road and prayed he didn’t run into the authorities or, God forbid, a real wizard.
Five minutes later, a horse-drawn carriage clacked down the road with For Hire painted on the side. Forcing himself not to wave gold pieces like a madman, Val flagged it down and climbed on board.
He still didn’t know where he was, but at least he knew where he was going.
Salomon’s Crib.
That was what Caleb had dubbed it, the house on Magazine Street where the old man with silver eyes had first sent them. When Val and his brothers had arrived, whisked through the interdimensional ether, three bedrooms were already prepared, as well as trunks of clothing, weapons, and gold.
This
time, Val guessed his father’s portal had deposited him and Mari somewhere west of the French Quarter, because after he gave instructions to the driver, they angled south through a series of residential neighborhoods similar to the one he had just left, crossed over St. Charles Avenue, then turned right on Magazine.
It all came back in a rush: the timber-framed buildings and muddy cobblestone streets, the disorienting lack of cars and electrical wires. The clarity of the air, unspoiled by pollution. The little details eerily endemic to both worlds: wrought iron balconies, courtyards shielded by banana trees, the sickly sweet smell of decaying vegetation.
And in the distance, like a billboard screaming you’re not in Kansas anymore, was the awe-inspiring sweep of the Wizard District: hundreds of multicolored spires piercing the sky high above the city, rising like celestial needles out of domes and manors and phantasmagorical creations of dripping stone.
When they neared the modest stone-and-timber façade of Salomon’s Crib, Val paid the driver and hurried inside. As before, the lock clicked into place behind him, despite the fact he had opened it without a key.
He walked past the windowless great room, made of rough stone blocks and lit by standing iron candelabra, then carried on down the bedroom-lined hallway to the kitchen at the far end of the residence.
Just like the last time, three loaves of bread awaited, next to a dish filled with creamy yellow butter. Val consumed an entire loaf, washing it down with a bottle of ale from the cellar. When he was done, he held the bottle in his hands, then rose and smashed it against the wall.
“Salomon! I know you’re out there! What have you done to us?”
Exhausted to the point of delirium, Val took a bath and laid down for a short rest, relieved that another huge chunk of time would not pass for his brothers every time he slept.
Mari stumbled through his dreams, clutching her intestines as they spilled out of the jagged hole in her stomach, looking at Val with confused eyes.
When he woke again it was morning.
As Val debated what to do, he buttered some bread and prepared a coffee—the pantry was stocked—in the sock-like contraption on the counter.
Mari was gone, and there was nothing he could do about it. He clenched his fists in anger, whispered a final goodbye in the silence of the room, and made a promise to extract what revenge he could. Then he shoved the rest of the universe aside in order to focus on the only thing that mattered.
Find his brothers.
He wanted to think they had escaped or possibly even killed Zedock, but he feared the necromancer was far too powerful in his own stronghold. Either way, Val had to be sure.
He needed information.
Salomon had left him with plenty of gold, but he didn’t know where to spend it. He wasn’t a citizen, and he knew if he started advertising his wealth, he would be robbed or thrown in the Fens or worse.
Mala was gone, and he had no idea how to locate Allira or Marguerite. He supposed he could ask around at the Thieves Guild, but that did not sound like a healthy proposition. He could think of only one person in the city who could point him in the right direction, and who he might be able to trust.
The morning sun blasted down as Val set a brisk pace down Magazine, the humidity already moistening the inside of the high-collared dress shirt he had found in one of Salomon’s trunks. He had also donned a pair of dark woolen pants, brown leather riding boots, and cuff links. He left his father’s staff hidden in the cellar so as not to attract attention.
He saw the date, the third of January, displayed on carved wooden blocks in the window of a bakery. According to the sixty-day time differential, that was four months earlier than it should have been.
He paled. Or eight months later.
When he reached the corner of Trafalgar and St. Charles, he peered both ways beneath the canopy of gnarled limbs festooned with Spanish moss, looking for a sign of the New Victoria City Tour operator he had once hired. Though it was still early, an hour after dawn, he supposed the driver might have left for the day, or was waiting at a different stop.
Val took in the twenty-foot high glow orbs in elegant bronze cages lining both sides of St. Charles, the stone mansions separated by wrought iron fences, the marble steps and stained glass windows and gardens of bougainvillea, all of it wrapped in a gauze of lingering morning mist.
“Step right up, good man, step right up and catch the Realm’s first and only city tour.”
Val whirled and saw a bearded man in a black top hat sitting atop a horse-drawn carriage, approaching from the north side of Trafalgar. It was the same driver as before, still chewing on a pipe and holding the same placard advertising the tour.
“Six groats apiece for the tour,” he boomed, “only six groats. We just need three more to get started, should be soon enough.”
Val stepped up as the carriage pulled to the curb. “If I recall,” he said, “it was six groats apiece or a silver drake for everyone.”
The driver took his pipe out of his mouth, his eyes shrewd. “You’ve ’ad one of me tours before, ’ave ye?”
Val flipped a silver drake up to the driver. “I’d like to hire you for the day.”
The driver caught the coin and whisked it into his jacket, then peered closer. “Ye do look familiar.”
Val climbed aboard the open-top carriage. “I was with my brothers and a friend last time. You were good to us.”
The driver wagged his finger. “ ’At’s right, ’at’s right, I remember. The out o’ towners, was it?” He slapped his knee and laughed. “Ye gave me a good tip and plenty o’ laughs.”
“That’s right,” Val murmured. “Just last October, right?”
“That’s it, that’s it,” the driver said, and Val breathed a sigh of relief. Only two months and a few days had passed here. “Say, where are yer brothers? They return, where was it, back north?”
“They’re busy today.”
Another stagecoach passed right beside them. Val caught a glimpse of a woman in a silken dress inside the carriage, chin held high, carrying a ruby-tipped wand and staring haughtily out the window.
A wizardess.
Though the woman had no reason to accost him, Val shrank from view.
The driver clicked his tongue, and the horses started down the wide, smooth-stoned road. “If ye like,” the driver called back, “since ye’ve been here before, I’ll toss in something extra. How about we swing by Bayou Village? If ye haven’t been, ’tis quite the sight.”
“Actually,” Val said, “I didn’t hire you for the City Tour. I need a driver for something else today, and you’re the only one I know.”
The burly driver stopped the horses and turned to face Val.
“I need information,” Val said, holding up another silver drake. “As you know, we’re new around here, and I’m not sure where to turn.”
The driver eyed the coin. “What kind of information?”
Val rubbed his tongue against his teeth. How to say this? “I’ve lost something I need to get back. Something important. The problem is, I have no idea where it is.”
Val remembered, when discussing magic with Alexander, that the geomancer had told him about a group of psychics called augurs who could receive impressions of the future. “Perhaps an augur could help?”
The driver clamped down on his pipe and blew a few smoke rings. “Plenty of those around. Too many, if ye ask me. Problem is, more likely than not ye’ll get a charlatan. And even if ye find a good one, she’ll spout some mumbo jumbo about the future that probably will just confuse ye.”
Val pressed his lips together. “I see.”
“This thing ye’ve lost, is it valuable?”
“Extremely.”
“Do ye ’ave a few gold pieces to spare?”
“I do,” he said evenly.
“And are ye brave?”
“I’m desperate.”
“Then what ye need,” the driver said, grinning through crooked, tobacco-stained teeth, “is a gaze
r.”
-9-
Will’s days passed in a blur of pain and hunger, his nights a gauntlet of cold and despair. Every morning, the tuskers separated the circle of prisoners by unlocking the padlocks, then secured a pair of captives to one of the squat, ugly steeds. Will rode with Dalen, Caleb and Yasmina right behind them. Tusker guards hovered on either side.
They rode from dusk to dawn, stopping only for five-minute breaks, making Will think the tusker mounts had steel for bones and iron for joints. Were they a native species, he wondered, or created by one of the legendary menagerists?
Caleb and Yasmina spent the journey slumped in the saddle with drawn faces and listless eyes. Even Will, who was used to never-ending slogs on the jobsite, had trouble managing the lack of food, the back pain, and the never-ending jostle of the ride.
On the fifth morning in, a lukewarm rain started to fall. They had left the marshlands behind and were traveling through copses of shortleaf pine and hardwoods. Despite the terrible nature of the journey, Will couldn’t help but admire the beauty of the old growth forests of this world. Everything was bigger and brighter, more pristine, more mysterious.
He raised his manacled hands to wipe rainwater off his face, then leaned forward to sneak in a chat with Dalen. “If the mines are out west,” Will whispered, “why are we headed north?”
“Too many natives due west. Not to mention Mayan war parties ranging up from the south. I don’t know about you, but I’ll take my chances with tuskers before I’ll have my beating heart ripped out of my chest by a battle mage and thrown into a volcano. Aike.”
Dalen, Will had learned, was not averse to a little melodrama.
“How far away is Fellengard Mountain?” Will asked. “I’m not sure how long Caleb and Yasmina can keep this up.”