Spellslinger: The fantasy novel that keeps you guessing on every page

by Sebastien de Castell

  My father showed no sign of concern. ‘I doubt you’ve forgotten the clan prince’s edict, Ra’meth. Our two houses are forbidden from feuding.’

  Tennat sniggered, which is the kind of thing you do when you’re too stupid to understand quite how dangerous it is to break an edict. There are all sorts of concealment spells in Jan’Tep magic, but none that will hide you from the clan prince’s wrath if you cross him.

  ‘We come on a matter of law,’ Ra’meth declared. ‘That foul creature of yours comes with us!’

  My father made a show of looking around at Shalla, Ferius and myself. ‘Of which foul creature do you speak? I seem to be plagued with them tonight.’

  Ra’meth pointed an elaborately carved oak-and-silver rod about two feet long at me. It was the symbol of his office and a potential conduit for his magic. ‘That filthy wretch cheated in a sanctioned initiates’ duel,’ he said. Ra’meth’s voice had a clear, almost musical quality to it so that, even angry as he was, there was a certain beauty to the way he added, ‘I will see Kellen, son of Ke’heops, bound in copper and buried in a cell this very night.’

  My father hesitated. Lying to a fellow member of the mage’s council was grounds for sanction, but if he admitted that Ra’meth’s accusation was true, I’d be dismissed from the mage’s trials. I had put my father in an untenable position.

  Damn all you ancestors a thousand times for making me so weak. ‘My spell failed,’ I said. That part was technically true, and not all that uncommon during the trials. ‘I just need another chance to—’

  ‘So you beat my son with lies and trickery!’ Ra’meth’s glare slid from me to my father. ‘You see? The boy admits his magic is weak. He should never have been allowed among the initiates. How many times have we told you that he should have been declared Sha’Tep years ago?’

  ‘I … I didn’t beat Tennat,’ I muttered, reeling from the idea that my fate might have been sealed so long ago. ‘My spell failed, that’s all. I just need a little more practice. Just until—’

  The end of Ra’meth’s oak-and-silver rod twitched and for a second I couldn’t tell if he was going to hit me with it or cast a spell. A fleeting motion to my left caused me to turn. Ferius had slipped a hand into her waistcoat. ‘Maybe you should stop shaking your little stick there, fella. It’s starting to annoy me.’

  Tennat, having been quiet up until now, finally found an opponent he was comfortable threatening. The tattoed iron band on his forearm began to glow, the eerie grey light cutting through the darkness around us. ‘Speak again, Daroman, and I will make the next words out of your mouth a scream for mercy.’

  Ferius took a drag from her smoking reed and nodded as if giving his words deep consideration. ‘Sounds serious,’ she said, and let out a puff of smoke that sent Tennat and both his brothers into a coughing fit. ‘Sorry about that. Guess you got me all flustered.’

  Tennat did his best to utter a few curses in between coughs.

  ‘Shut up, Tennat,’ Shalla said. ‘You’re just upset because you lost the duel.’ She turned to his father, favouring him with a little more respect. ‘Lord Magus Ra’meth, Kellen didn’t violate the terms of the duel. He didn’t set any traps or use weapons. The fact that Tennat thought he was losing and gave in wasn’t Kellen’s fault and it wasn’t against the rules.’

  Ra’meth was about to say something when my father cut him off and spoke directly to Tennat. ‘Were you injured, boy? Did my son hurt you with … whatever it was he did?’

  Tennat’s chin came up. He looked a little green. ‘I’m fine. Kellen could never hurt me. He’s too weak.’

  My father nodded, though I could see the skin around his eyes tightening. ‘Then the question is settled.’ He turned to Ra’meth. ‘Your boy wasn’t harmed. This was a simple misunderstanding and is now an issue to be resolved by the respective families, not by the court.’

  For a moment it appeared as if the matter was done with and we could all return home, but Ra’meth suddenly pointed his rod at Shalla. ‘You. You duelled your brother without sanction or agreement.’ With increasing confidence he turned his fury back on my father. ‘This precocious little wretch of yours attacked an initiate who had only just completed a duel. This crime cannot be ignored. The girl must be counter-banded. Permanently.’

  Shalla’s eyes went wide with terror. The very thought of what Ra’meth proposed – of my father being forced to burn counter sigils into her bands, forever denying her the ability to perform any magic whatsoever … For a moment I thought she might actually make a run for it.

  My father looked pained. Ferius just laughed.

  ‘You find our laws funny, Daroman?’ Ra’fan asked, stepping forward to stand by his father’s side.

  ‘Nah, I just think it’s sweet how you’re all so worked up over Kellen’s well-being when a minute ago you wanted to arrest him. You’re quite the little troop of concerned citizens.

  Ra’meth’s rod began to smoulder with shifting blue and red light so thick it was like watching twin snakes slithering around the shaft. ‘Watch your tongue, woman. You know nothing of Jan’Tep power.’

  Ferius kept a hand on whatever it was she was holding inside her waistcoat pocket. She let out a smoky breath that filled the air between her and Ra’meth and set him to coughing. ‘I know that if you keep pointing that little stick of yours in my face you’re going to find it lodged somewhere mighty uncomfortable.’ Her lips kept their casual smile but her eyes looked deadly serious.

  Ra’meth caught his breath and laughed. ‘Would you draw a weapon on me, Daroman? Would you do battle with a Jan’Tep lord magus? Say yes, I beg you, or simply nod and the duel is sanctioned.’

  As if on cue, all three of Ra’meth’s sons lined up in front of us, raw magical force twisting and turning around their arms while their hands prepared the somatic forms for a range of assault spells.

  I saw Shalla tense up next to me, then try to calm herself, hands at her sides, fingers twitching with her own spells. Ferius still had her hand inside her waistcoat, no doubt holding some kind of weapon. And me? I guess I can throw myself at them and hope it breaks someone’s concentration.

  ‘Have you lost your minds?’ my father demanded. ‘By the clan prince’s decree we are forbidden from feuding. He will see your entire house exiled for this!’

  The threat of exile should have brought them to their senses, but it didn’t. Ra’fan and Ra’dir smirked. Tennat openly giggled. They looked like jackals grinning over wounded prey. They know something we don’t.

  ‘I suppose you’ve been distracted this night by the plight of your failed children,’ Ra’meth said. He nodded back towards the centre of the city. ‘How else could you have missed the lights above the palace?’

  I looked back, past the homes and shops, all the way to the palace itself. Seven beams of coloured light, so pale they almost disappeared against the backdrop of stars, rose from the roof of the palace to meet the sky. I was too young by far to have ever seen the seven sacred lanterns lit, but even I knew what they meant: the clan prince was dead.

  ‘A tragedy,’ Ra’meth said, his tone making a lie of his words. ‘By tomorrow the council will open the election for the next clan prince. Naturally they’ll forbid any acts of vendetta between the great houses, but that is tomorrow. Tonight is for the kind of justice that is quickly forgotten once an election is called.

  My father’s next words echoed through the street. ‘Enough!’ He stepped in front of Ra’meth. ‘You come at me like a shadow thief in the night with your accusations and your arrogance? Go home, Ra’meth. Make whatever complaints you wish to the council in the morning, or, if you are so determined to settle this matter here in the street like dogs fighting over a bone, then we have the means to do so. But it is me you will duel, Lord Magus, not my children and not this woman.’

  For a moment Ra’meth looked genuinely worried by the cold, hard stare my father gave him. I thought he was about to walk away, but then he said, ‘My whole life I have watc
hed you strut and stride among our people, Ke’heops. You act as if you are so much better than the rest of us, but for all your strength, you are only one man.’ Ra’meth nodded to his sons. ‘My blood is strong. Every one of my children carries the magic of our people in their veins. You have forgotten the wise words of our ancestors, Ke’heops: it is the house that matters, not the man.’

  This is it, I realised. They’re going to attack. My father, powerful as he was, couldn’t hope to overcome Ra’meth and his sons by himself. Shalla had potential, but that wasn’t going to be enough against a lord magus, a chaincaster and a war mage. Do something, I told myself. Anything.

  A light chuckle broke the silence. It came from Ferius. ‘A little free advice? Next time you’re planning an ambush, don’t give the other guy so much time to prepare.’ She took one last drag from her smoking reed before letting it fall to the ground and crushing it under the heel of her boot. She still had a hand inside her waistcoat.

  ‘Show us your little weapon then, woman,’ Ra’meth said. ‘You think a knife will save you?’

  Ferius withdrew the hand and held it up for all to see.

  It was empty.

  ‘Look, see?’ Tennat laughed. ‘She’s a fake, like Kellen. She doesn’t even have a weapon.’

  She smiled, then blew the last of her smoke into the faces of Ra’meth and his sons. ‘Who needs a weapon?’ she asked, as the three of them began coughing even worse than before. It was only then that I realised how careful she’d been to always blow the smoke out towards them and not us. ‘Yeah, that stuff’s awful rough on the lungs the first few times. Gives you a terrible headache too.’ She turned to me. ‘Say, I don’t suppose you need to be able to speak and think clearly to cast spells, do you?’

  Ra’fan, the skin on his face looking remarkably green, extended his right hand, middle two fingers bent in towards the heel of his palm and the outer two extended towards Ferius. ‘Medran’e’fe …’ The intonation of the spell was broken as he launched into a coughing fit. Ra’dir tried next, but barely got the first syllable out before he turned and vomited into the street.

  Ferius looked down at the remains of her smoking reed on the ground. ‘I should give those up. Filthy habit really.’

  Ra’meth drew in a deep breath, his eyes focused, expression calm. Like his sons, he looked ill from the smoke, but unlike them he had the strength and experience to resist its effects. Before he could open his mouth however, my father spoke, hands held out in front of him. His fingers didn’t twitch nor did his bands glow. My father never showed off. ‘Think before you speak, Ra’meth of the House of Ra, because in the next ten seconds I will use these hands either to carry my son home so that his mother can see to his injuries or to settle our dispute once and for all. The choice is yours.’

  Ra’meth stiffened. He gave no more threats, no more demonstrations of power. My father had made it clear that there were only two choices. Without Ra’fan and Ra’dir to back him up, Ra’meth knew he couldn’t take my father. He signalled for them to leave, then turned to me. ‘You will receive no gold disc for your duel, boy. You will fail the other three trials as you failed the first. Then you will find yourself here among the Sha’Tep where you belong.’ He grabbed Tennat, who was still choking and gagging from the smoke, and turned to leave. ‘Where even your parents have always known you belong.’

  The words were callous and cruel and I knew they were calculated to wound my father as much as me. Still, my heart would have sunk then had it not been for Ferius, who gave a little snort and punched my father in the arm. ‘All that magical posturing with glowing rods and mystical fireworks, and in the end you sent him packing with nothing more than a stern look. I see where the kid gets his nerve.’

  I felt strangely proud of that.

  6

  The Household

  I convinced my father to let me walk the rest of the way home but I suspect I didn’t make it very far because I woke up sometime later in my mother’s private room. She and my father shared a bedroom, but each also kept a separate chamber for their personal use. In my mother’s case, it was for her two passions: medicine and astronomy.

  A wall of beautifully framed star charts greeted me when I opened my eyes. I was lying on my side on her silk-covered settee.

  From the age of six I’d spent countless hours in this room, sitting anxiously as my parents cast evocations in the hope of strengthening my pathetically weak connection to the six foundations of magic. The process exhausted them and left me so weak I was unable to do more than lie on the settee for hours. By now I knew every inch of every wall and every scratch on every piece of furniture in the room, so I was unsettled to see one of my mother’s silver telescopes lying haphazardly on the floor in the corner. Her writing desk held a large piece of parchment and small bottle of black ink left open, which meant she’d been in the middle of working on a new chart when my father had brought me to her. On the opposite side of the room, cabinets of healing draughts and medical supplies sat wide open, pieces of linen bandaging strewn on the floor. Guess I was in even worse shape than I thought.

  Voices carried from outside the door but I couldn’t make them out. My first attempt to get to my feet failed as nausea and the sensation of dozens of rusty iron spikes piercing the inside of my skull forced me back down. One of my ribs screamed in protest. It didn’t feel broken any more, but it still hurt. A Jan’Tep must be strong, I imagined my father saying. An eavesdropper must be stronger, I added.

  I clambered down to the floor and crawled on hands and knees until I reached the door and put my ear against it. Normally I wouldn’t have been able to hear through the thick wood, but normally people weren’t yelling quite this much.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault!’ Shalla shouted, her voice a half-octave higher than usual. ‘Kellen’s the one who cheated! He cheated!’

  My father’s reply wasn’t shouted at all and yet the deep tones of his voice practically made the walls shake. ‘And in your pride, you betrayed your brother. Your family. Your blood.’

  ‘But—’

  Whatever she was about to say next ended in a strangled cry.

  ‘Ke’heops!’ my mother said, her voice pleading rather than commanding.

  ‘The one is a liar and the other a traitor to her family,’ my father said. ‘Is our blood so weak? So flawed? The House of Ra seeks our downfall, and how can I present myself as candidate for prince of our clan when my own progeny shows the seed of our line to be so foul?’

  ‘She is a child! She doesn’t know what she—’

  ‘A child? She sparks one of her bands every other week. Her power grows daily. What manner of mage will she become, when her spells are tempered not with humility and conscience but instead amplified by arrogance and pride?’

  There was a long pause in the argument while the sound of my father’s pacing rumbled along the floorboards of the house. ‘I could counter-band her,’ he said. ‘Permanently. I have the metals waiting in my study. I know the sigils. I needn’t even ask the council.’

  ‘Husband! You cannot!’

  ‘Father, no! Please!’

  His footsteps stopped. ‘I am the head of this house. It is my right and my responsibility both to protect this family and to protect the clan from the threat of another rogue mage. I will bind her forever if I must. Do not doubt it.’

  My mind suddenly filled with visions of Shalla being held down by the force of my father’s will as he pushed banding needles into her forearms, coloured inks of copper and silver insinuating themselves under the skin, the counter-sigils binding the magic inside her forever. I rose to my feet and reached for the doorknob.

  ‘You say things you do not mean to,’ my mother said. Her voice held a stiff tone she used only rarely, like a steel bar fresh from the forge. Even my father knew not to test that strength.

  ‘I’m sorry, Father,’ Shalla whimpered. I let out a breath I hadn’t realised I was holding in and stepped back from the door. I knew my father loved Shalla f
iercely, and yet now he seemed to be contemplating the unthinkable.

  ‘Go to your room,’ he said. His voice had lost its imperious edge, replaced by a weary resignation. ‘I will take time to consider the appropriate course of action.’

  Several minutes passed before I heard my mother speak again, this time her tone softer, gentler. ‘Shalla is not like your mother, Ke’heops, nor was she to blame for what she did. Seren’tia was sick, she was –’

  ‘She was shadowblack,’ he said.

  The world became silent and still, shut down by the word my father had just uttered. Shadowblack?

  There are seven fundamental sources of magical force, but Jan’Tep mages are banded with only six: iron, ember, silk, sand, blood and breath. No mage is ever banded with the seventh, because shadow is the magic of emptiness, of the void, of the demonic. Our ancient enemies, the Mahdek, drew upon shadow for their spells. That’s why the Mahdek are long dead.

  My grandmother had died when Shalla and I were still small children. I knew she’d lost her mind – something that can’t be allowed for a mage with her power – but could she really have been shadowblack?

  No wonder our father was concerned about Shalla’s behaviour.

  ‘Nice family you got there.’

  I spun around and lost my balance, tripping over my own feet and stumbling forward. If Ferius hadn’t caught me I probably would’ve tumbled out the open window beside her.

  ‘Reckon you can fly now, kid?’

  Looking up at her I was again struck by the unruly curls of copper-coloured hair that tumbled across her features. They might have suited a lady of the high court had they not seen more sun than a broad-brimmed frontier hat could hold at bay. Her black leather waistcoat was scuffed, and her linen shirt had long ago traded its original colour for a thousand miles worth of dust. But it was the smile – curled up on one side as if she was holding back the best joke in the world – that really set Ferius Parfax at odds with the refined elegance of my mother’s study.