‘Do it again,’ Reichis said. ‘Use more this time.’
‘I used half of each bag.’
‘Then—’
‘It doesn’t work that way,’ I shouted in frustration. ‘It needs to be contained somehow. It needs something to direct the force. Damn it, I can’t think!’
The horse had broken its tether and was now running around the barn in circles, futilely searching for an escape. The noise and the chaos were making it impossible for me to concentrate.
I shut my eyes tight and clamped my hands around my ears so that I could focus. I turned my thoughts back to the powders sitting in their pouches on the ground. The first try had accomplished nothing but to feed the flames even more. A second wouldn’t do any better. The powder is the answer. Somehow. I just need a way to control the explosion so it doesn’t dissipate. Why couldn’t you have broken the damned ember band? Only … what I needed wasn’t actually ember magic. That was for creating energy, not focusing it.
I removed my hands from my ears and looked down at them, my eyes fixating on the specks of powder stuck to my fingertips. Master Osia’phest had told me at the oasis that the carath spell didn’t generate wind; it channelled whatever force was at the precise point of the spell. If the only energy present was a light breeze, then it channelled that breeze in the direction of the spell. If something more powerful was present …
‘Reichis, I’ve got an—’
‘Kellen, look out!’ he shouted.
I turned just in time to see a raging mass of hoofs and muscle rearing down at me. The horse, its mouth frothing as the sides of its coat smouldered from contact with the burning walls, was going mad, stomping on everything in its path. I jumped out of the way just in time to watch its hoofs smash into the dirt floor. The pouch containing the red powder tipped over and its contents began spreading towards the one with the black. I tried to reach in to pick them up, but the horse reared once more and again brought its hoofs down, and this time the pouch with the black powder tipped precariously. If the black one fell too …
‘He’s afraid of the fire,’ Reichis said, as if I might not already be aware of that fact.
I reached out and tried to gentle the horse, but it snapped its teeth at me. ‘Damn it, you’re going to get us killed, you stupid beast! Reichis, the powder!’
‘I’m on it,’ Reichis chittered. I turned to see him bounding from the other side of the barn. At first I thought he was going to run to the pouch of black powder to snatch it out of the way. Instead he leaped in quick progression from the floor up to a barrel and onto a shelf that held grooming equipment. From there he launched himself and spread his limbs wide, gliding onto the horse’s neck. The beast reared up, trying to shake him off, but the little squirrel cat held firm on to its mane and climbed up closer to its head. I watched in awe as Reichis, still hanging from the mane with one paw, used the other to grab the horse’s ear. I thought he was about to bite into it, but instead he started chittering furiously. The horse reared and shook once more, then its hoofs landed on the ground and it stopped moving.
‘His hide is starting to burn, Kellen,’ Reichis said, still sitting atop the horse’s head.
I grabbed a blanket folded over one of the stalls and used it to tamp down the horse’s sides. It took the treatment with surprising stillness. ‘What did you do?’ I asked, looking into the horse’s eyes. The fear was still there.
‘Horses are terrified of fire,’ the squirrel cat said. ‘It drives them mad.’
‘I know that. So how did—’
‘There are still one or two things that scare them worse than fire,’ Reichis said, looking down at the horse’s eyes. ‘I let him know which ones I could do to him before we burned alive.’
Ancestors save me from my new business partner. ‘All right. Stay back,’ I said.
‘What are you doing?’
Something that’s probably just going to get my hands blown off before I burn to death. I knelt down and with my right hand carefully scooped up some of the red powder from the ground. With my left I grabbed a roughly equal amount of the black.
I let the powders slip slowly away until I was left with just a pinch between the forefinger and thumb of each hand. It probably wasn’t enough to do more than burn the hells out of my fingers, but if I could make it work without killing myself then maybe I could try the spell again with more. I hope you knew what you were talking about, Osia’phest. I coughed again and realised this was probably my only chance. I’d have to aim for the point where the door met the wall. Maybe if I hit it just right, there would be enough force to make it buckle. Of course, for all I knew, Ra’meth’s mages would be waiting for us. The hells with it. Let the squirrel cat deal with that problem.
I had one shot at this. One spell that I wasn’t complete rubbish at, using breath – the one form of magic I’d sparked and the only one my father hadn’t counter-banded. If I failed this time …
‘Kellen, if you’re just going to piss about …’
I let out what breath was left in my lungs, said a brief prayer to my ancestors that, if I had to be reincarnated, I wouldn’t come back as a squirrel cat, and tossed the powders into the air in front of me. My hands formed the somatic shape for the spell: bottom two fingers of each one pressed into the palm, the sign of restraint; fore and middle fingers pointed straight out, the sign of flight; and thumbs pointing to the heavens, the sign of, well, somebody up there, help me, please.
The powders met and exploded in front of me – a split second of red and black fury that bulged out as if it were trying to reach up and grab my face. Then something – the spell, I guess – took hold of the fire and shot it straight out away from me. Please hit the edge of the door, I prayed.
Smoke and heat blew into my face and I stumbled backwards, losing my footing and experiencing a brief feeling of release – of floating – before I hit the ground. Don’t pass out, I told myself. Whatever you do, don’t …
Something cool and furry was on my left cheek. It went away only to return again a second later. The pattern continued for a few brief moments until I opened my eyes. Two beady black eyes set back from a whiskered snout looked down at me. The squirrel cat was sitting on my chest tapping my face with his paw.
‘What the hells are you doing?’ I asked.
‘I’m slapping you. I’ve seen humans do this when one goes unconscious. Is it helping?’ He pulled his paw back again. ‘Should I use my claws?’
‘Stop it,’ I said, pushing him off my chest.
I tried to rise too quickly and things started to go black again. I took in a breath close to the floor and then pushed myself up more carefully. The smoke seemed less thick. ‘Did I hit the door?’ But if I had, wouldn’t Ra’meth’s men be in here already, sticking something sharp in my belly?
‘Not even close,’ Reichis said.
‘Damn it,’ I said, getting my feet under me and doing my best to shake off the effects of the blast. ‘I can try again … I can …’
‘Don’t bother,’ Reichis said.
I followed the line of his paw towards the other side of the barn. The fire was still raging around us and I could hear wooden beams beginning to crack. The smoke cleared just enough for me to see what I’d done. I’d missed the door by a good six feet. It didn’t matter. Where the wall had been there was now a huge gaping hole; slats of charred wood blown through and supports falling over. I took one teetering step towards what was left of the wall. Two bodies lay partially buried under the debris where Ra’meth’s mages had stood guard. I didn’t bother to check whether they’d survived. I assumed you needed a torso to live.
I heard something shambling behind me and a moment later felt Reichis’s paw on my leg. ‘Kellen?’
‘Yeah?’
‘I think maybe I’ve found something about you that I like.’
I stared at the wreckage, the bits of burning wood and red-hot metal. I’d never seen destruction like that. Even the thirstfire torch had been blasted to piec
es. A breeze was rushing into the now three-sided barn, feeding the flames but giving me a taste of fresh air I’d never expected to breathe again.
I knelt down and carefully picked up the pouches of black and red powder, putting one in each pocket before I went to drag Shalla and Ferius out of the barn. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I think I’ve found something about myself that I like too.’
42
The Hunting Party
It took a little while for me to get my strength back. By then Ferius was already regaining consciousness. Shalla was still out of it. I suspected it would be a while before the effects of the mine wore off.
‘Something bothering you, kid?’ Ferius asked.
I looked behind me to see her barely holding on to the reins of her horse, listing from side to side as the animal navigated the uneven forest terrain. She was so beaten up that the only thing keeping her conscious was Reichis periodically clambering up onto her shoulder to slap her around the face with his paw. The squirrel cat seemed to find this tremendously entertaining.
‘Nothing much,’ I replied, turning back to make sure the horse I’d taken from one of Ra’meth’s men wasn’t leading us off the edge of the narrow path. Below lay a steep-sided gorge that I was using to guide us back towards the northern edge of town. Shalla lay unconscious across my saddle, her breathing still so slow and shallow that I couldn’t stop myself from repeatedly checking her pulse.
Ferius gave a chuckle. ‘You’re a terrible liar, kid.’
‘Guess I’d better start practising then.’ My own uncle had conspired against our people. My parents had been secretly weakening my magic all these years because they’d known since I was a child that I was going to develop the shadowblack. And it turned out my clan had never fought a war against the Mahdek people. We’d murdered them in their sleep and stolen their cities – and their magic. ‘No one is who they say they are,’ I said.
‘First thing you learn wandering the long roads, kid. Everyone thinks they’re the hero of their own story.’
‘Somebody’s out there,’ Reichis chittered suddenly, beady black eyes glimmering from his perch on Ferius’s shoulder.
I looked all around and saw only trees and rocks and thick underbrush. ‘Where are they?’
The squirrel cat’s whiskers twitched in annoyance. ‘I don’t know – they must be hiding. But I’m telling you: this place stinks of Jan’Tep.’
‘What’s the little bugger saying?’ Ferius asked, a hand reaching back into her waistcoat for her razor-sharp steel cards. ‘Maybe we’d better—’
Whatever she was going to say was cut off by a sound like the screeching of a thousand nails dragged across a chalkboard. Reflexively my hands formed the somatic shapes for the shield spell I’d been taught to practise every day since I’d started school. ‘Senhathet!’ I shouted. It accomplished nothing of course. I couldn’t spark the tattooed iron band around my forearm that would have given me access to that form of magic. Also, I wasn’t the target.
Reichis leaped away from Ferius an instant before she went flying from her horse. There was no sign of any weapon, but instead a shifting purplish light that moved like water through the air, pooling around her, holding her aloft even as patches of it extended into long black tentacles and began to strike her over and over. A lightshaper, I thought, looking around for the source but still unable to see who was casting the spell.
I rolled Shalla forward on the horse’s back and jumped off to try to help Ferius. Her mount reared wildly, desperately trying to stamp at the strange light surrounding its mistress. The glowing shape seemed to take notice, and suddenly three of its tentacles bunched together and drove themselves deep into the animal’s belly, only to split apart again, tearing the horse’s insides out. The horse’s screams became a terrifying counterpoint to the gleeful shrieks of encouragement I heard from somewhere in the shadows.
I reached my hands into the pouches inside my pockets. Lightshapes can be blown apart, I thought. But how was I going to hit the shape without burning Ferius?
‘Enough,’ a voice called out. The sound was muffled … distorted. Someone’s using a misting spell … That’s why I can’t see them, and why I can’t recognise who’s speaking.
A moment later the purple lightform dissipated and Ferius fell heavily to the ground. I ran to her and found she was still breathing. But her face and arms looked as if a dozen men had been kicking and beating her all night. Her right eye was already swollen shut, but the left flickered open. ‘Hey, kid? How come you keep pissing people off and I’m the one who takes the beatings?’
‘Step away from the Daroman spy, Kellen,’ the voice called out again.
I recognised it this time, and turned to see the misting spell had been dismissed. ‘Panahsi?’
My oldest friend shook his head. ‘Not any more. I passed my mage’s trial this morning. My name is Pan’erath now.’
‘You’re a lightshaper,’ I said, not quite able to keep the awe out of my voice.
He gave me a smile that was proud and dismissive at the same time. ‘Been practising since the trials started. Since you betrayed us that first time, helping a Daroman spy against your own people.’
‘She’s not a spy, Pan! She’s just a—’
Tennat appeared from the darkness with his brothers close behind. ‘Go on, Kellen. Tell us how she’s nothing more than an innocent Argosi who just happened to arrive right before your treasonous uncle and his Sha’Tep allies came up with a plan to destroy our clan.’
Ra’dir sent out a blast of fire into the air, lighting up the forest. ‘Where’s the nekhek?’
‘Ran away, no doubt,’ Ra’fan said, his hands already preparing one of the binding shapes I knew he’d use on Reichis the second he spotted him.
Ra’fan was a chaincaster and Ra’dir a war mage, so neither of them had been the one to cast the misting spell. ‘So I guess you’re the sightbinder of this hunting party, Tennat?’ I asked.
‘My name is Ra’ennat now,’ he replied.
Great. Everybody has a mage’s name except me.
I felt Ferius reach out to grip my arm. There was no strength to it. ‘Kid, soon as I make my move, grab your sister and run. I’ll keep them—’
‘You’re half dead and flat on your back,’ I whispered back. ‘What kind of “move” are you planning to make?’
She sounded oddly offended. ‘I’ve still got moves.’
‘Come on, Kellen,’ Panahsi – no, he’s Pan’erath now – called out. ‘Step away from the Daroman and don’t make this worse than it needs to be. We know all about the conspiracy. We know how she and your uncle plotted to use the nekhek to destroy our clan’s magic.’
‘It makes sense if you think about it,’ Tennat said. I had no intention of calling him Ra’ennat. ‘If our clan lost its magic, you wouldn’t really be a cripple any more, would you?’
I rose to my feet. ‘You’re a liar, Tennat. Your family knew what was going on and you –’
I was interrupted by a groaning sound and turned to see Shalla, still draped across the horse’s back, her body shivering and convulsing. I started towards her. ‘I’ve got to get her home to—’
I was knocked off my feet by a blast of force. ‘You stay away from her!’ Pan’erath shouted. When I looked up at him his face was full of righteous anger. He thinks he’s protecting her. From me.
I finally understood what was going through Pan’s mind. He wasn’t ganging up against his friend. He was facing off against the classic villains of all our childhood stories: the foreigner spy, come to tear apart the clan; the nekhek monster, foul teeth hungry to pierce the flesh of Jan’Tep mages and destroy their magic. And the most nefarious of all: the traitor Sha’Tep, who would deliver his own sister to his clan’s enemies out of bitterness and envy. Pan’erath was the hero – the young mage who’d assembled a coven to save the helpless princess. It all had such perfect symmetry. ‘You’re an idiot,’ I told him.
Ra’fan uttered a word and my arms pinne
d themselves against my sides, crushing my own ribs.
‘Don’t,’ Pan’erath said. ‘Save the spell for the nekhek.’
I don’t think Ra’fan liked being ordered around by someone who’d only been made adept a few hours before, but he complied and I felt the crushing grip fade away. ‘The monster’s probably already fled back to its lair,’ he said dismissively. ‘We should just—’
‘We do this my way,’ Pan’erath said, taking a step towards me. ‘Surrender, Kellen. I promise I’ll speak for you to the council. I don’t want to see you hurt.’ Winding tendrils of light, red this time, formed around his hands as his fingers traced tiny symbols at his sides in preparation. ‘Or we can duel, and I’ll do my best not to kill you.’
He’s so proud of his lightshaping spells, I thought. He won’t be able to resist the urge to show them off. But Pan hadn’t seen me use the powders and he didn’t know what I could do with them. Fire could burn through his lightshapes. If I was fast enough, I could end the fight in one shot. Our people’s most ancient laws would demand that the others let us go.
Of course, one look at the way Tennat, Ra’fan and Ra’dir were glancing at each other told me they had no intention of honouring the terms of any duel. So there’s no way my one spell is going to get me out of this alive.
‘That’s a really tempting offer, Pan,’ I said as I walked very slowly to kneel beside Ferius. I closed her waistcoat against the cool night air. ‘But you shouldn’t have attacked my friends.’
‘Kid, this is a terrible plan,’ she whispered.
‘Quit calling me kid,’ I said, palming the deck of steel cards I’d taken from her.
I stood back up and turned to face the four of them. ‘No more duels, Pan. No more rules. No more games. I’m giving you one chance, because …’ Because we were friends once. Because you waited a whole year to take your tests just so I wouldn’t be alone with people like Tennat. It seemed hard to believe that he’d once valued my friendship so highly. All that was gone now. ‘Get these three morons out of here and help me clean up the mess Tennat’s father made before our whole clan really is in danger.’
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