Spellslinger 6: Crownbreaker

by Sebastien de Castell

  ‘What are you doing in the Jan’Tep territories, Ferius?’

  Her reply was a little too smooth. ‘Oh, you know. Following the Way of Wind like always. Reckoned I’d pay my respects to your mama.’

  I reached into my pocket for the cards Bene’maat had sent me, curious what Ferius would make of them, but the sound of footsteps alerted us to a Sha’Tep servant walking down the long hallway towards us. I didn’t recognise him, despite noting the sigils of my own house on the shoulder of his long clerk’s coat. That wasn’t in itself surprising – after my uncle’s rebellion years ago, my father would have had to replace any number of his household servants.

  Without so much as a bow the clerk said to me, ‘You have been summoned by the mage sovereign.’ He handed me a folded note that repeated exactly what he’d just said.

  Reichis snarled at him. The squirrel cat has an unsympathetic relationship with servants. First, because he can’t seem to tell the difference between servitude and slavery, and second, because he considers murdering anyone who calls himself your master to be a moral imperative.

  My people don’t typically rely on servants to deliver messages. Given the number of spells one can use for communication within a city like ours, having somebody walk around with a piece of paper searching for its intended recipient is a waste of time. However, casting spells within the house of a guest is considered poor form. I suppose my father was showing respect to Queen Ginevra – which told me he was far more keen on this alliance than he pretended.

  Ferius positively beamed at the clerk. ‘You mean my old buddy Ke’heops?’ She made a show of glancing around the hallway. ‘Where’s he at? Me and him have a wagon-load of catching up to do!’

  I wondered if it were a sign of the Sha’Tep’s receiving better treatment these days that the clerk felt comfortable looking down his nose at Ferius. ‘You are not invited, Argosi. Only Ke’helios.’

  ‘Ke-what-now?’ she asked, looking at me.

  ‘Long story,’ I replied, then noticed the twitch in Ferius’s grin. ‘Which you already know, apparently.’

  She chuckled. ‘Don’t give me that look, kid. Gotta let a body have fun where it can.’

  ‘The mage sovereign awaits,’ the clerk reminded us.

  While I don’t share Reichis’s disdain for those forced into lives of service by chains, economics or societal convention, neither did I appreciate the way this guy kept sneering at Ferius. ‘Tell Ke’heops I’ll wander by in an hour or so.’

  ‘Your presence is not requested in an hour. It is expected now.’

  I patted him on the shoulder. ‘Don’t worry. My father is accustomed to me disappointing him.’

  The clerk spun on his heel and managed to stomp down the hall with remarkable aplomb.

  ‘Why do you suppose your daddy’s so fired up to see you this late at night?’ Ferius asked.

  ‘Tradition,’ I replied. ‘After a Jan’Tep funeral the family assembles to grieve privately and fulfil any last requests of the deceased.’

  ‘Sounds innocent enough. Sweet almost.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So probably a trap then?’

  ‘Yep.’

  22

  The Athenaeum

  There’s a tavern that serves foreigners not far from my family’s ancestral home. I left Ferius there with Reichis. While she doesn’t speak squirrel cat, she has a reliable intuition about what he means to say. For his part, Reichis loves to gamble, and one of his many aspirations in life – after killing off the Jan’Tep, ridding the world of crocodiles and one day becoming a giant, skinbag-devouring demon – is to finally beat Ferius at cards.

  ‘Cheater!’ he accused in an angry chitter. His paws, though extremely dextrous, aren’t all that good for holding cards. His frustration sent his hand flying across the table. The other patrons in the tavern’s common room glanced over nervously. Watching an Argosi and a squirrel cat play cards is funny only up to the point where the beast starts snarling in a way that reminds any Jan’Tep in the room why nekhek are considered demon spawn.

  ‘He just accuse me of cheatin’?’ Ferius asked.

  ‘What else?’

  I motioned for the nervous waiter to bring the platter of food I’d ordered for the two of them. Reichis immediately snatched the biggest piece of lamb between his two paws and started chewing noisily while giving Ferius dirty looks.

  She made a show of being affronted. ‘I’ll have you know, sir, that I’m as honest as the day is long. Double-dealin’ ain’t the way of the Argosi!’

  She proceeded to deliver an extremely conspicuous wink.

  ‘Did you see that?’ Reichis demanded, dropping the hunk of lamb from his jaws. ‘She just winked! The Argosi’s lying!’

  ‘He thinks you winked,’ I informed her.

  ‘Me? I did no such thing.’

  She winked again, even more atrociously this time.

  ‘There!’ Reichis insisted. ‘She did it again! She’s been cheating this whole time, Kellen!’

  I translated the accusation, though it was hardly necessary.

  ‘Well now,’ Ferius began, leaning in to whisper conspiratorially to Reichis, ‘maybe it’s time I taught you how the professionals do it, squirrel cat.’

  For a second Reichis just stared at her, entranced by her words. Finally a nasty squirrel cat grin appeared on his muzzle. ‘Oh yeah?’

  Abruptly he looked away, towards the window at the far end of the tavern, and sniffed at the air. He’d been doing it a lot since we returned to my city.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘That’s like the eighteenth time you’ve reacted like you smelled something important.’

  ‘Just thought I caught the scent of another … It was nothing.’ He went back to peering intently at his cards – his way of telling me to drop it.

  ‘I’m out of here,’ I declared, heading for the door. ‘My loving family will be expecting me.’

  Ferius looked over at Reichis. ‘What time you reckon me and you oughta go rescue him?’

  The squirrel cat chuckled, delighted to be in on the joke.

  I was going to say something caustic, but it occurred to me that there really was a decent chance I’d need to be rescued soon, so I left them to their cards and cheating lesson. ‘Maybe give it an hour?’ I suggested.

  Ferius shuffled the deck of cards. ‘Sure, kid. See you in thirty minutes.’

  ‘You’re late,’ Shalla said, greeting me in the arched doorway outside our family home. She wore a red satin grieving gown – a Daroman tradition uncommon to our own people and distinctly at odds with her longstanding belief that the customs of foreigners were by nature uncivilised. Perhaps spending the past year as head diplomat of the Jan’Tep arcanocracy to the royal court of Darome had given her a more cosmopolitan outlook.

  ‘I informed Father’s clerk I’d be here in an hour,’ I said.

  ‘You’re still late.’ The slim fingers of her right hand played at the glittering gemstones sewn along the neckline of her gown. Grieving gowns are meant to be modest garments that convey sorrow and solemnity, not low-cut affairs that accentuate the wearer’s curves. The preposterously expensive fabric Shalla had chosen shimmered under the glow-glass lanterns overhead. The soft light cast a halo around the golden hair arrayed about her face in an elaborate arrangement of curls and tresses designed to draw attention to her cheekbones.

  Life in Darome hasn’t changed you at all, has it, sister?

  Shalla, the girl who disdained outsiders as fools, had simply grown into Sha’maat, the woman who used them as puppets in her petty political schemes.

  Often as not, I was the puppet in question.

  ‘Oh, go ahead, brother,’ she said with a sigh, noting my gaze. ‘Make some snide little comment about my appearance if it makes you feel better about your own shabby state.’

  That last jibe was unnecessarily cruel, though I supposed I’d earned it when I’d intentionally gone to the tr
ouble of changing out of my proper court clothes before coming here. Still, I’d worn my good travelling shirt – the one with only a single hole in the right sleeve. And the knee of my trousers was freshly patched. I’d even brushed my hat. ‘I did have a nice metaphor about excessively expensive frames around cheap paintings all set to go,’ I admitted. ‘But you’ve taken the fun out of it, so maybe I should just ask why, for the memorial of our mother’s passing, you’re dressed like a comfort artisan in a low-rent saloon.’

  ‘We’re not here for a memorial,’ she said, and pushed open the door. ‘Now are you coming inside or are you going to stand there all night glaring at me?’

  I gestured for her to go through first. She rolled her eyes and led the way.

  I paused beneath the archway to check my powder holsters, throwing cards and castradazi coins. The reason I’d been late was because I’d spent the past half-hour skulking in the shadows across the street. I’d told myself this was because I’d been – very prudently – casing the place to figure out if an ambush awaited me. That was a lie of course. Whatever traps awaited me here were more likely familial than supernatural. The simple truth was that, despite my frequent stays in various jails, prisons and dungeons all across the continent, nothing scared me more than the prospect of stepping inside my childhood home.

  When I was a boy, I’d always assumed ours had been a comfortable, though not extravagant lifestyle. A few years wandering the long roads and seeing how other people lived had quickly cured me of that misapprehension.

  The humblest thing you could say about my father’s house was that it was a touch too small to be a palace. After all, a dozen servants was barely a sufficient number to run the household of a family of four. How could anyone get by with only two high-ceilinged libraries, the walls lined with shelves stacked with expensive books and glass cases filled with rare scrolls? Of course, that wasn’t counting the expansive athenaeum used exclusively for the housing of our ancestral records.

  My parents, quite naturally, each required their own marble-floored sanctum for meditation, these in addition to their private studies specially designed to suit their personal interests in astronomy, healing and military strategy.

  As for the mansion’s exterior? Well, when you’ve already got two walled gardens, what’s one more? You’ve got to put those statues of your less renowned ancestors somewhere.

  ‘Are you quite all right, brother?’ Shalla asked, staring up at me as we walked through the wide central hallway of the main floor.

  ‘I’m fine. Why?’

  ‘Your hands are shaking.’

  I guess I forgot to mention the one special chamber on the top floor – the one with copper- and silver-lined walls where my father practises his most complex spellwork, the one with the heavy oak table to which I’d once been strapped for days while he and my mother used molten metallic inks to inscribe counter-sigils into the tattooed bands on my forearms. The burns had been the least painful part of the process.

  Breathe in emptiness, I told myself.

  Shalla led me to the family athenaeum. The circular room, modest in size – which is to say, not much bigger than a Sha’Tep family’s entire house – was ringed by sandstone statues of those of our ancestors no doubt too important to be kept outside. At the centre was a large marble table with a short lectern built into each of its four sides to facilitate the careful reading of fragile texts. In my entire childhood I’d never been allowed in this room.

  ‘You came,’ Ke’heops said, looming over one of the lecterns, fingers turning the yellowed pages of a worn, cloth-bound book. In contrast to Shalla, he was dressed in austere grey robes of the sort mages wear during meditation and struck me as remarkably plain given the ostentatious surroundings. Still he projected a kingly demeanour, as if destiny was a glow that emanated from beneath his skin.

  Maybe some people really are born to rule.

  ‘You’ve got fifteen minutes,’ I said.

  He didn’t bother to look up. ‘You’ll stay the night. You and I both owe your mother’s memory that much courtesy at least.’

  ‘I’m afraid we may have very different estimations of any debts I might owe this family, Father.’

  I’d have expected him to turn his considerable capacity for ire on me, but it was Shalla who bore the brunt of his outrage. ‘You see now, daughter?’ he asked, glaring at her. ‘Always you cajole and beg me to reconcile with him, just as your mother did. “A father’s duty”, the two of you insisted over and over.’ His forefinger jabbed towards me with such force my hands instinctively went to the clasps of my powder holsters. ‘What about his duty? Not once has Ke’helios shown the slightest concern for the interests of our house.’

  ‘That’s not entirely fair,’ I said casually. ‘I’ve made every reasonable effort to undermine them wherever possible, Father.’

  The three Jan’Tep bands on each of his forearms flared to life. ‘Because I permitted it. Bene’maat insisted I give you the freedom to tramp your way through the world, that I allow you to pretend at being an Argosi or an outlaw or whatever clownish games you chose to play. That ends tonight.’

  I flipped open the flaps of my holsters.

  Well, this got real ugly real fast.

  ‘Father, please …’ Shalla said.

  She starts that sentence a lot, I’ve noticed, but never seems to finish it. Her eyes went to me, pleading for me to be sensible and back down. Maybe she was right. One thing I’ve learned during my travels is that the world is never quite big enough to get away from your family. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try though.

  I bowed deeply to my father then my sister. ‘Well, it’s been a delight as always, Ke’heops, Sha’maat. I’ll bid you both a good night now.’

  I turned to leave, but when I reached for the doorknob, my hand missed. I tried a second time. A third. No matter which angle I tried or even if I attempted to overshoot the knob in any given direction, all I got for my efforts was to keep smacking the ends of my fingers into the hard surface of the door. My father usually goes for iron binding spells, so his use of silk magic was aimed at making me lose my temper.

  ‘Drop the bewilderment spell, Father.’

  I heard the tell-tale hum of a shield spell behind me. Ke’heops was now simultaneously holding a silk confounding spell and summoning an ember cocoon around himself. Not one in a hundred mages can do that. This was his way of telling me that no matter how many tricks I’d learned in my travels, no matter how cunning I considered myself, he could still take me down, and would always be able to do so.

  He’s waiting for you to try to blast him with your powders, the cold, calculating part of my mind warned me. To him you’re just a petulant child about to throw a tantrum.

  My father had miscalculated though. His choice of the ancestral athenaeum for this little reunion had been a mistake. The instant I tossed my red and black powders in the air and formed the somatic shapes with my fingers, I’d aim the spell not at him, but at the glass cases that held our family’s most precious texts. A man obsessed with his own lineage couldn’t stand to witness the obliteration of his ancestors’ artefacts. He’d have no choice but to extend his ember shield to cover half the room, and that would force him to drop the silk bewilderment spell.

  ‘Brother, no!’ Shalla shouted, no doubt guessing that whatever trick I had up my sleeve was unlikely to improve relations between us. ‘Our people are in danger! We have to think like a family now!’

  ‘Thanks, but I prefer my own,’ I said, taking advantage of the interruption to surreptitiously pass a hand across the hidden pocket in the hem of my shirt and get my castradazi coins ready. ‘You may remember them. The lunatic Argosi who loves taking down Jan’Tep arseholes and the two-foot furry one who likes to eat their eyeballs afterwards? Probably best for all of us if I leave before they come looking for me.’

  I turned to go, but the silk confounding spell in the air between me and the door was as strong as ever.

  ‘Is thi
s the day we dance then, Father?’ I asked.

  First the feint with the powders, I thought. Then throw a half-dozen of the steel cards. Go for the eyes. He’ll protect them with his shield, but that’ll give you time to pull the coins. He’s never seen me use those. Blind him with the luminary coin, then bind the fugitive coin to the rest of my cards, toss it, and use the chaos of razor-sharp pieces of steel flying through the air to—

  ‘See how he scowls at me?’ Ke’heops demanded of my sister. ‘How am I to trust him with our people’s future when his only desire is to prove he can beat me?’

  ‘Tell him!’ Shalla shouted. I wasn’t sure who she was talking to until she grabbed my father’s arm – an absolutely insane thing to do when the two of us were squaring off like this. ‘Stop trying to control your son and explain to him what’s happening to us!’

  She’s given me the advantage, I thought. He’s off-guard. If I time it just right, I can take him.

  I hesitated, which is suicide for a spellslinger facing off against a lord magus. But Shalla wasn’t done with him. ‘Now, Father,’ she said, a rare defiance suffusing her words, ‘tell your son the truth, or I swear that I too will leave this place behind.’

  Was she even aware of the way the tattooed metallic bands around her forearms were blazing so bright that Ke’heops and I were being drowned in the multitude of colours? That much raw magic being drawn into the air was breaking apart his shield spell, to say nothing of the headaches that threatened to have both of us bleeding from the eyes and ears.

  Just how powerful are you, sister?

  ‘Enough,’ Ke’heops said at last, putting up his hands and banishing his own spells. He waited for Shalla to draw back her magic before locking eyes with me. ‘Let him hear the truth then, and we shall see whether your brother intends to save our people, or by his wilful disregard make himself the cause of our destruction.’

  23