The early crest of Pan’s lightshaper magic slithered and grew around his hands. ‘I’d rather see our people disappear from the world than take orders from a Sha’Tep weakling.’
For a moment I tried to think of something to say, some way to break down the wall between us, but there wasn’t one. Pan’erath was a Jan’Tep mage. I was a Sha’Tep traitor. That was all there was to it. I looked out into the tops of the trees, still not seeing Reichis but having no choice but to hope he was somewhere up there. Wonder what he’ll charge me for this. ‘In that case, gentlemen, I rescind my offer. I’m going to kick all your asses and then I’m going to save our people myself.’
When you’ve only got one good spell it’s hard to resist the urge to use it. After all, the powder magic was the most powerful weapon I had, and neither Pan nor the others had seen it before. With any luck, I could take them by surprise and maybe even knock one or two of them out of the fight at the outset. Even more though, I so badly wanted to show them that I had my own magic, that I was as good as they were. And then what? There was no way I could hit them all fast enough. Ra’dir’s war-mage training meant he’d be prepared for surprises, and Ra’fan would use one of his chaincaster spells to bind me the second I fired off the spell. Fine, I thought. Card tricks it is.
‘Don’t do this,’ Pan said, a look of genuine concern on his face for the first time.
I guess it’s one thing to make threats against an enemy and another to realise you’re about five seconds away from killing your childhood friend. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’ll try to be gentle.’
The way I had it figured, my one chance was to stop thinking like a Jan’Tep and start thinking like an Argosi, the way Ferius did when she kept tricking them. All Pan and the others understood was magic – who had what spells and when to use them. They didn’t notice the uneven terrain and the shifting darkness around us. They didn’t consider how close together the four of them were standing, or that I might not be alone in this. All they saw was a good old-fashioned Jan’Tep tale of good versus evil, where good always wins. What I saw was a card game with a half-dozen different decks in play. Ancestors save me, I thought. I really am turning into an Argosi.
‘Come on,’ Tennat urged. ‘Make your move, coward.’
I almost laughed. Even now, after everything that had happened, with us ready to maim or even kill each other, Tennat was still using the same old taunts he’d tossed at me our whole lives. I ignored him and turned my mind to solving the first of my very real problems: Ra’dir. If he hit me with the flames or lightning from a war spell, I’d be dead before the fight even started. Then again, if Ra’fan got one of his chain spells around me, I’d be helpless. I needed a way to get both of them off balance at the outset. I glanced up at Tennat and smiled. ‘Hey, remember that time I nearly got you to crush your intestines with your own spell? How much do you want to bet I can make you blind yourself?’
He took a step forward. ‘I can’t wait to get you in a small room away from prying eyes, weakling.’ He spread his arms wide apart – the opening of the strongest of the blinding spells. Once he set his intention and uttered the words, he’d bring them together and it’d be like a curtain closing over me. The second he opened his mouth, I flung one of Ferius’s steel cards straight for him.
Ra’dir and Ra’fan were more experienced and knew not to flinch, but Tennat suddenly fell back – right into them. ‘Get out of the way, you idiot,’ Ra’dir shouted, trying to shove him aside to get a line on me.
I dived to my right, rolling awkwardly over my shoulder but managing not to drop the cards or slice my own palm on them. As I came up on one knee, I flung two more. One sailed harmlessly off into the darkness, but the other caught Ra’fan in the leg. He gave out a yell and stumbled forward into Pan’erath.
A burning sensation passed my left ear as one of Ra’dir’s spells flew by. If I hadn’t still been in motion, he’d have set me ablaze instead of the tree behind me. I kept moving as fast as I could. This isn’t going to work for long, I reminded myself. War mages train to hit moving targets.
I ran behind the trees, flinging cards as I went, trying to keep the group close together and prevent any one of them from getting a line on me. A lucky throw sent another card spinning into Ra’fan’s left hand, a thread of blood appearing where his palm was cut open. He wouldn’t be casting any chain spells for a few minutes. It’s working! I thought. Then a shape of almost black light enveloped me and I found myself pinned against a tree. Pan’erath had finally cast his own spell.
I’d known this was coming of course. If I’d prepared pinches of powder instead of the cards I could have blasted the shadows apart, but that wasn’t my plan. I guess now I find out just how reliable squirrel cats are. ‘Reichis, now!’
For a second nothing happened. The others had just started to relax when a chittering voice said, ‘Okay, but you’re really going to owe me for this.’ A dark shape swooped down from the treetops onto Pan’s head. I watched in sick fascination as Reichis covered Pan’s face with the furry webbing that stretched between his front and back limbs while his rear claws drew gashes into the back of Pan’s neck, causing him to stumble back, screaming in pain.
I felt the shadow release me and flung two more cards to keep the others from grabbing Reichis.
‘Get him off me!’ Pan shouted.
‘Lousy torturing skinbag,’ Reichis growled. ‘Let’s see how well your blood magic works once I’ve ripped your eyes out.’
‘Reichis, don’t!’ I screamed.
Fire flared in Ra’dir’s hands as he prepared to blast the squirrel cat out of existence. I wondered if he cared that he was probably going to kill Pan at the same time. Reichis didn’t take any notice, his complete commitment to revenge outweighing any sensible fear he might have. I launched the remaining cards at our enemies, desperately trying to distract them. I missed them all, except for Ra’fan, for whom I was seriously starting to feel some sympathy, since I’d now hit him for the third time, this card lodging deep into the muscle of his shoulder. ‘Damn it!’ he screamed. ‘Blind him, Tennat!’
‘My name is Ra’ennat,’ his brother insisted, but in the chaos and confusion he couldn’t summon the concentration to make the spell work. Still haven’t learned that you can’t cast spells when you’re scared.
Ra’dir had a lot more training and composure though. He fired his spell, eyes on Reichis. The squirrel cat leaped off Pan’s face, but his left side still got caught in the blast and his fur caught fire. I took off at a run and by some small miracle caught the squirrel cat mid-air. I curled into a ball and tumbled forward to roll on the ground, smothering the flames with my body. From the burning sensation on my torso, I guessed I wouldn’t be growing any chest hair for a while.
Reichis got out from under me and ran back into the forest. I felt a twinge of resentment at his utter lack of gratitude, but I forgave him a few seconds later when he emerged from the trees behind our opponents and gave Ra’dir a deep gash in the back of the leg before disappearing back into the underbrush.
‘Get the nekhek,’ Pan’erath ordered, rising up from the ground, blood on his forehead and iron in his eyes. ‘I’ll deal with the Sha’Tep.’
The shifting blackness around his hands grew and slithered out towards me, reaching for me. Okay, this is it, I thought, as I dug my hands into my pockets and brought out generous pinches of the red and black powders. ‘Carath,’ I said, uttering the simple breath spell as I flung the powders into the air towards each other. My fingers took on the somatic shapes, aiming the resulting explosion into Pan’s lightform. It blew apart and he fell to the ground, winded.
‘How …?’ he began, looking up at me.
‘I told you before, Pan. I’ll never be Sha’Tep.’
‘You’ll never be Jan’Tep either,’ Ra’fan said, his bleeding hand outstretched towards me. Somehow he pushed through the pain and shock of his wounds and cast a chain spell that wrapped itself around me, paralysing me where I
stood.
Reichis appeared again from the underbrush and raced for Ra’fan, but this time Ra’dir was ready for him. He fired off another blast and the squirrel cat had to pull up short to keep from running right into it.
‘Reichis, run!’ I shouted.
He hesitated as if he might stay, but I think he realised the odds had turned sour on us. ‘Sorry, kid,’ he chittered, turning back into the darkness before Ra’dir could try again.
Ra’fan gritted his teeth and beads of sweat appeared on his forehead as he clenched his fists. Damn … he’s not just trying to bind me any more. Every part of my body was being squeezed, crushed by the force of his will. I was sure I heard my ribs creaking as the invisible chains tightened around them. ‘You’re done, Sha’Tep. I’m killing you. Now.’
‘I’m afraid I still have some need of him,’ Ferius Parfax said. In the periphery of my vision I saw her struggling to stay on her feet as she flung one of her steel cards straight for Ra’fan’s eyes.
It flew in a perfect line, only to disappear into the watery light emanating from Pan’erath’s hands. ‘This is your fault, Daroman.’ I’d never heard his voice sound so cold, so hard. ‘You ruined everything.’
The tendrils of light set themselves upon Ferius, pulling at her hair, her hands, bending her fingers back too far. I tried desperately to reach into my pockets for more powders. If nothing else, I might be able to create some kind of distracting flash.
‘I don’t think so,’ Ra’fan said. The squeezing around my ribs grew tighter and I couldn’t take in a breath any more.
Tennat, evidently having finally overcome his fears, started walking towards me. ‘It’s over now, Kellen. You played all your dirty little tricks and now it’s time to say goodnight to the world.’
He spread his arms, uttered a word, and in an instant I was completely blind.
I heard Ra’dir say, ‘Keep an eye out for the nekhek. It’s still dangerous.’
Tennat practically giggled. ‘No, it isn’t. My blinding spell covered all of them. The moment the creature shows up, we burn him.’
Something dropped heavily to the ground a few feet away from me. Pan must have dropped Ferius, I thought.
‘It’s enough,’ he said. There was a weariness to his voice. ‘Let’s bring them back to the council. They’ll stand trial for what they’ve done.’
‘No,’ Tennat said.
‘We agreed—’
The sound of footsteps accompanied Tennat’s voice as he walked the last steps towards me. ‘You may have agreed, Pan, but the rest of us have different plans.’ My eyelids closed reflexively as thumbs began pressing against them.
‘Tennat, no!’ Pan called out.
‘Look!’ Tennat said, scraping with his thumbnails at the paste covering the markings around my left eye. ‘Look at the marks. It’s like my father said: Kellen is a shadowblack.’
The forest went silent. I heard the sound of more footsteps coming closer, so close I could feel breath on my face. ‘So it’s true,’ Pan said. Something wet hit my cheek just below my eye. Pan had spat on me.
‘We take him to the council,’ he said. ‘They need to see what he’s become.’
‘They can see from his corpse,’ Tennat said, and I felt him gripping the sides of my head again.
‘No. I said—’
A brief sound of scuffling ended when Ra’dir said, ‘You’re still new at this, Pan’erath. You don’t understand how wars are fought. Think of this as the fifth test – the one every war mage has to pass.’
Tennat’s thumbs pressed ever so slowly against my eyes. I would have screamed, but the chain spell wound its way over my mouth and Ra’fan squeezed what little air was left in my lungs. This is it, I realised. I’m going to die now. For real. Forever.
Tennat’s voice crept into my ears. ‘You deserve this, Kellen. For being a liar and a cheat. For all of—’
He screamed so loud I went deaf for a second.
Another shout of pain, this one I think from Ra’dir. More screams. More shouts. Chaos penetrated the darkness of my world. I had no idea what was happening, but then I realised the blinding spell was gone. I opened my eyes just in time to watch a white-gold light smash into Ra’fan so hard it flung him deep into the darkness of the forest. A dull thud echoed in the air.
With Ra’fan unconscious, his chain spell dispersed and I fell to the ground. I looked up to see Pan standing alone, his eyes full of tears.
At first I thought he’d changed his mind – that once he saw what the others were doing, he had turned on them to save my life. But then the white-gold light shimmered again, and Pan’s body lifted up high above the ground. He spun in the air, slowly, almost gracefully, as if he were underwater. Finally his body settled some seven feet up, his arms and legs splayed out as if he were tied to four horses pulling him apart. He was still conscious. He said, ‘But I did it for you … I saved you.’
My head turned, following the line of his sorrowful gaze, and I saw Shalla leaning unsteadily against a tree. Her arms were outstretched in front of her. One by one the links holding back the coloured bands on her arms began shattering like thin rings of glass exploding to the vibrations of a perfect note. The last constraints on her abilities fell before the raw force of her magic. Shalla’s eyes, usually a piercing blue, gleamed pure gold, like the light of her spell. She turned her palms up and Pan’s body rose even higher into the air, then she closed them into fists, and he crashed to the ground.
‘Nobody touches my brother,’ she said.
43
Pan’erath
I rose to my feet slowly, unsure whether I was looking at my little sister standing there or one of those gleaming gods of vengeance the Berabesq write about in their holy books. ‘Shalla?’ I asked.
She took no notice of me. Pure, radiant magic cascaded around her hands again, building to a crest that would destroy Pan and the others along with half the forest.
‘Shalla, don’t!’ I shouted.
She turned to look at me. At first she didn’t seem to recognise me, but then the gold in her eyes gave way to blue. ‘Kellen?’ she asked. ‘You look terrible.’ Her hands slumped by her sides and all of a sudden her knees gave out. She fell back against the tree and slid to the ground with surprising elegance.
‘I swear, that kid’s too pretty for her own good,’ Ferius said, grunting with effort as she stood up. ‘Too damned powerful for anyone else’s.’
I knelt beside Shalla. ‘She’s not breathing right. What’s wrong with her?’
‘The human body’s not meant to move that much energy. I reckon she’ll be all right, but she needs healing.’
‘Can you—’
Ferius shook her head. ‘I don’t deal in that kind of medicine. She’ll need your mother’s help.’ She knelt down and reached under Shalla’s shoulders. ‘Come on, help me get her onto the horse.’
Sounds of movement in the brush drew our gaze, and a moment later Reichis emerged. He looked just about as beaten up as the rest of us and the fur down his left side was singed. ‘Sons of bitches,’ he swore. ‘Nearly knocked me halfway up the damned mountain.’ His beady eyes looked around at the unconscious mages on the ground, then up at us. ‘You didn’t leave any for me?’
I translated for Ferius as we lifted Shalla onto the horse’s back. She laughed, then groaned. ‘Tell the little bugger to stop making jokes. My ribs hurt.’
Reichis ambled over and skittered up a tree before hopping onto my shoulder and starting to pick at the burnt parts of his fur. ‘Who says I’m joking?’
Ferius and I spent the next few minutes tying up the others with copper binding wire I’d found in Panahsi’s bag. No, his name’s Pan’erath, I reminded myself. That’s who he is now. Jan’Tep through and through.
When I looked down at him, I saw the same pudgy face I’d known most of my life, his otherwise handsome features still too soft and pockmarked from a life-long fondness for lemoncakes and other sweets. But there was something else there,
too. Anger. Determination. Something inside him was now as hard and sharp as the cards in Ferius’s steel deck.
How many times had Panahsi stuck by me these past couple of years while his magic got stronger and mine just weakened? How many times had the other initiates urged him to stay away from me? To shun me? Pan could have run his mage’s tests ages ago. He could already be a powerful mage, apprenticed to one of the masters, maybe even being groomed to join the lords magi on the council one day. Instead, he’d stuck by me.
We’ll never be friends again. The thought put a sick, empty feeling in my chest. There was no apology that either of us could offer that would ever tear down the wall between us. We’d done things to the other that neither would ever forgive. Each of us had made choices the other would never really understand or condone. ‘We’re done here,’ I said, as I finished binding his hands behind a tree trunk. I didn’t bother promising to send someone from town to free him and the others. If Pan’erath didn’t already assume I would, then it’s not like he’d believe me just because I said so.
‘You sure we shouldn’t kill him?’ Reichis asked, looking down from a tree branch.
‘Of course I’m sure,’ I snapped.
For once, the squirrel cat didn’t seem offended. He just looked down at me with something that, in a less homicidal creature, might have been sympathy. ‘He’ll never let go of this, kid. You can smell it on him.’
‘I’m not going to smell him, Reichis.’
The squirrel cat hopped down to the ground and sniffed at Pan’s face. ‘Too bad, because if you did, even dumb as you are, you’d sink your teeth in this one’s throat before you ever turned your back on him.’
‘Time to get moving, kid,’ Ferius called out.
Spellslinger: The fantasy novel that keeps you guessing on every page Page 28