by Adam Carter
“That’s awful,” Moya said.
“It’s a living.”
“And you want to use the same potion on me?”
“Only a single dose. It will remove your memories of this man. Will that be satisfactory?”
“I’d rather not have my memories messed with,” Moya said, “but Jobek’s right. If I don’t have these memories removed they’ll eat away at me.”
“A bad memory is not a cancer,” Hilda pointed out.
“In my case it could well become one.”
Crenshaw could see Hilda was not certain what the young woman meant, but she had been in the apothecary business long enough to know everyone had their secrets.
“I’ll do it,” Hilda said, “but there is, of course, something I’m concerned with.”
“I do want it,” Moya said. “I’m not being coerced.”
“Dear, I dose people up when they fall through my door drunk, I certainly don’t care whether you’re sure you want this. I’m talking about payment. My love potions aren’t exactly cheap.”
This had been the problem Crenshaw had been trying not to think about. They still had no money, but Moya needed this attention. There was no question in his mind that she was going to receive it, no matter what he had to sacrifice. His thumb and forefinger were unconsciously rubbing his ring. It was all he had left of Maria, but very soon he would be with her and he would no longer need any sentimental mementos.
“No,” Moya said when she realised what he meant to do. “Jobek, you can’t give her your ring.”
Crenshaw tugged at the ring. It refused to come off, as though agreeing with Moya, but with a few twists he managed to get it free. With trepidation, he handed it across to Hilda. She took the ring, placed a glass to her eye and examined it.
“It’s not worth much,” she said.
Crenshaw bit back his reply, for it would not have done Moya any good at all.
“But it’s enough,” Hilda said, pocketing it.
“No,” Moya repeated, flustered. “Jobek, you can’t give up your wedding ring. It’s all you have left.”
“It’s a thing, Karina. A possession. It doesn’t matter.”
“Drake’s not important, Jobek. I won’t let him take something like that away from you.”
“And I won’t let that man destroy you. Hilda, when can you begin?”
“Now, if the young lady is ready.”
Moya opened her mouth to argue, although Crenshaw placed a hand upon her shoulder. “Karina, this is something I want to do. You said you trusted me.”
“I do.”
“Then trust me.”
She lowered her eyes and Crenshaw could see they had moistened. Meekly, unable to speak, Moya headed through a doorway whose drapes Hilda was holding for her. Crenshaw approached and spoke to her quietly.
“She doesn’t need to think she owes me anything,” he said.
“The memory of the ring can go as well,” Hilda promised.
Crenshaw was grateful, although he was hardly glad. Hilda told him to wait in the shop. He asked what he should do if a customer appeared, for he did not want to disturb her, but Hilda chuckled and said she didn’t get enough customers to worry about two appearing in the same hour.
Crenshaw therefore waited. First he sat, but after a few minutes his mind was too nervous so he took to wandering the shop, examining things. None of it made any sense; the shop was an alien world to him. He had no idea what use bats’ eyes could be put to, or just what adult frogspawn was – he’d always figured that was just frogs. There was even a jar marked ‘pickled pickles’ and he tried to work out what a pickle could be called if it wasn’t pickled.
Just as he was beginning to go mad, he heard Hilda cry out in alarm.
Then Karina Moya screamed like a demon burning in the light of heaven.
CHAPTER NINE
Asperathes had been lying on a roof, basking in the sun, when he heard the explosion. He jolted upright so quickly he almost dislocated his neck, and as he gazed across the town he watched in horror as a bright orange ball of concentrated fire tore out in a perfect circle from somewhere on the ground. Everything in its path was incinerated – buildings, people, even the very air itself was burning, with faint wisps of fire fluttering off like birds taking lazy flight. The backwash of hot air struck him a few moments later, along with the noise of the explosion and the screams of the dying. During his confinement, Asperathes had listened to so many people being tortured to death, but none had ever sent such a shudder through him as did this.
“That’ll be the humans, I’ll wager,” an apepkith said beside him. There were several on the roof and Asperathes seemed to have been the only one to have so much as sat up.
“What?” he asked. “Your town is burning, aren’t you bothered?”
The apepkith shrugged, turned over to get some sun on his back. “They’re a savage species, old fellow. We can’t go running to help them every time they decide to kill each other.”
“People are dying down there.”
“Who are you all of a sudden? A shepherd?”
He was right, of course he was right; but Asperathes had friends down in the town. Crenshaw would have no protection against such an explosion and he wondered whether Moya might have been able to shield him. Crenshaw would have taken her to an apothecary to get some form of herbal remedy, try to calm her mind that way. It at least gave Asperathes a place to start.
Dropping down from the roof, he ran in entirely the opposite direction as everyone else. He fought the stampeding crowd so fiercely he realised he was causing as much damage as the flames, so tried to work his way to the edges of the crowd. As he did so, he stumbled over a man, who fell to the ground with a thud. Asperathes stopped to help him to his feet, but released the man in fear when he saw his skin was blackened and blistering. The man’s eyes were already dead and it seemed he had only made it this far due to the heavy jostling of the crowd.
Two streets farther into the destruction, there was no one left running against him. The buildings were black husks, for the fire had torn through them with such speed that they had already ceased burning. He saw the body of a child in the street. The girl could not have been more than four years old and had been burned so badly most of her legs had been blasted away to the bone. Thankfully she was lying face down in the ash, for the sight of her dead, pleading eyes may have turned Asperathes around.
As he continued on, he moved at a much slower pace, knowing nothing could have survived this.
Reaching the area at which he had left Crenshaw, he stopped and took a long look around. If there was an apothecary anywhere in the vicinity, it had long since been burned away. Pieces of buildings remained standing, although nothing was recognisable. Crenshaw was dead, his body reduced to ashes Asperathes would never find.
Something moved a hundred metres away; rubble fell, the harsh sliding of blackened wood the only sound for half a mile. Asperathes threw himself towards the noise and saw an arm thrusting wooden girders out of its way. With a splutter, Jobek Crenshaw emerged from the wreckage.
“Jobek!” Asperathes grabbed the girders as he reached his friend, throwing them aside with ease, for his strength would have been superior at the best of times. “Jobek, you’re alive.”
“Help me get her out of here,” Crenshaw said with a croaky voice.
It was then Asperathes saw Moya, lying beside Crenshaw. The town was destroyed, Crenshaw was wounded and suffering from smoke inhalation, while Karina Moya was sleeping. There was not a scratch on her.
“What happened?” Asperathes asked, wary now. “What did she do?”
“Nothing. That woman. Hilda.” He coughed savagely to clear his throat. “She was doing something to her. I didn’t see what … was in the other room. Karina cried out, I ran to her, then things got hot and I passed out.”
“Where’s this Hilda now?”
“Dead, I guess.”
“Then she wasn’t the one who did this.” He could s
ee Crenshaw was barely listening, but what Asperathes had to say needed to be said before Moya awakened. “That woman just took out a good portion of this town, Jobek. She’s killed, again.”
“If you’re going to suggest again that we murder her, you can stop right there.”
Moya sat up so swiftly it made Asperathes jump. “What happened?” she asked, rubbing her head.
Asperathes was about to tell her, but Crenshaw got there first. “You tell us. Hilda, did she attack you?”
Moya tried to focus but was having problems with her eyes. “I don’t remember. I was in a field, there was a light rain. I could hear a voice – Hilda was talking to me. She was trying to keep me calm.”
“That fits in with what she would have been doing,” Crenshaw said. “Then what?”
“I tasted something. It was poison. I was being murdered.”
“It was a love potion,” Crenshaw said. “It was supposed to be a love potion. That hag must have switched it.”
“Love potion?” Asperathes asked.
“I’ll explain later. Karina, what else do you remember?”
“Only that I didn’t want to die. I fought it, the potion. I pushed back, or at least I think I did. Then I blacked out.”
“She doesn’t even realise what she’s done,” Asperathes said in exasperation.
“Asp,” Crenshaw warned, but it was too late.
“What?” Moya asked. “What have I done?”
Crenshaw went to say something, but she pushed him aside and staggered to her feet. Her jaw fell when she saw the destruction, her head turned slowly to see everything, and then her legs went out beneath her and she would have fallen had not Crenshaw been there to catch her. Asperathes had a sinking feeling that Crenshaw would always be there to catch her.
“You didn’t do it,” Crenshaw told her. “I don’t know what happened, but you didn’t do this.”
“I’ll tell you what happened,” Asperathes said. “A fireball erupted from this spot and incinerated the town. It was like a star exploding from the ground and it burnt everything so quickly that even the flames have been blasted into oblivion.”
He could see Crenshaw was not happy with his being so blunt, but the girl needed to know the severity of her actions.
“Oh,” was all Moya said. That she was in shock was evident, although Asperathes saw it as a convenient cover. Whatever her ploy, it worked because Crenshaw placed his arm about her, told her it was all right, and helped her from the rubble.
“No,” Asperathes said, “we’re not just ignoring this, Crenshaw. This woman is dangerous. I’ve told you that from the beginning, and now you’re going to listen to me.”
“Not here, Asp.”
“Yes, here.”
“This woman broke you out of that dungeon, show a little respect.”
Asperathes was about to say something else, but Moya spoke first. “Joe, if I caused all of this, then Asp’s right. I … I’m not safe to be around.”
“When did she start calling you Joe?”
Crenshaw ignored him. “You’re not safe to be around yourself, Karina. Until we get this sorted, I’m not leaving your side.”
“Joe, I could kill you.”
“No, you protected me. This entire section of the town burned, but I’m still here.”
“That only proves I did this, Joe.”
“It also proves you have some control over it. Unconscious control. We just have to work hard to make that conscious control.”
“Control?” Asperathes said. “She just killed hundreds of people, Crenshaw. This is beyond control.”
“Karina’s one of us, Asp,” Crenshaw said angrily. “Contrary to what you’re used to, we’re not just sticking a knife in her back and forgetting about her.”
“I’m offended, Crenshaw. I was a high-class bounty hunter. I never stuck a knife in anyone’s back.”
“I’m not listening to any more of this,” Crenshaw said. He was still supporting Moya, was perhaps the only thing preventing her from falling, and Asperathes watched her closely, trying to spy any tell-tale signs that she was faking this. The problem was that she seemed entirely genuine, but Asperathes refused to feel sympathy for her. She may have had Crenshaw under some form of spell, but Asperathes was not falling for it.
Spell. Now there was an unnerving thought.
Seeing no point in arguing his case further, Asperathes allowed them to go and for several minutes watched as they slowly made their way through the ruined town. He could imagine Moya was crying, that Crenshaw was consoling her; he saw her stumble more than once on her way and was annoyed with himself that he still could not see whether she was faking it. Humans were good at lying, human females especially he had found, and any observations he was making could only lead to speculation. What Asperathes needed were facts. Back when he was a bounty hunter he had successfully tracked down so many humans, and he had always done it by acquiring facts. Either he would speak with people or he would gather solid evidence, such as reading spoors. He had been incarcerated for years, and there was a chance his skills had gone a little rusty. His problem was that he had forgotten what his life had been like so had not even given his capabilities a chance. That would have to change. He would solve this mystery and present a case to Crenshaw. By the man’s reaction, Asperathes would be able to tell whether his old friend was under a spell.
Love potion. That was what Crenshaw had said. The possibilities of that were horrendous and Asperathes did not even like to contemplate them.
There was hardly anything left of the area, but Asperathes had always prided himself on being able to discern the truth from the slightest of clues. Moving farther into the burned-out husk of the building, he was hoping to find the remains of Hilda, although doubted he would have been so fortunate. If he could find some proof that the woman was dead, however, he could at least destroy any foolish notion that anyone but Moya was to blame for the blast.
Deciding he must have been in the general region of the apothecary, Asperathes began his search in the area where his two companions had been buried. At first he could find nothing but ash, although as he passed through the shadow of the skeletal remains of the building he came upon something which chilled his heated blood. On the floor there were concentric circles formed of ash, becoming blacker and less fine the farther they travelled to the centre. This was without doubt the origin point for the blast. In the very centre lay a piece of crystal. At first Asperathes believed Hilda had been hit with such heat that she had been turned into diamond. As he picked up the object and rubbed away some of the ash, however, he realised it was an amulet. The cord used to keep it about its owner’s neck was burned to nothing, but the amulet remained. It was pentagonal, bearing the emblem of an eagle, and Asperathes had seen it before.
It was Kastra’s.
He thought back, trying to remember whether Moya had stopped by Kastra’s body to collect the trinket, but he honestly could not recall much from that mad escape. Nor had he been watching her, so there was every chance she could have snatched it from Kastra’s corpse as they ran through to freedom.
Why Moya would want Kastra’s amulet was beyond Asperathes’s understanding, but her possession of it told him one thing. It told him that Moya’s violent actions since departing the dungeon were not as spontaneous as she would have liked them to believe. She was not a victim here, but a villain. She was planning something, had been planning something for a long while, and stealing Kastra’s amulet was clearly a part of it.
His mind wandered further, and he surmised her presence in the dungeon may not have been an accident after all. Asperathes had assumed the guards had made a mistake in bringing a sorceress to their cell, but perhaps Moya had influenced that decision. Perhaps she had never been a prisoner at all, but all of them – everyone – were puppets dancing to her whims.
They were disturbing thoughts, yet Asperathes had reached many conclusions in his line of work and they were almost always so near to the truth that a
ny discrepancies were inconsequential.
He had been right all along. Moya was dangerous. However, the presence of the amulet would not be enough to convince Crenshaw. Presenting it him would in fact only return it to Moya, as well as losing Crenshaw as a friend. The best thing Asperathes could have done with the amulet was discard it, bury it perhaps. But if he left it in the town, no matter how well hidden, he had a feeling Moya would have returned for it, just as soon as she realised she had lost it. He did not know what powers the amulet contained, but Asperathes did not want Moya ever getting her hands upon it again.
Tucking the amulet into a fold of his silken attire, Asperathes departed the ruins and headed out after his companions. He had no plan for the future, other than keeping a wary and constant eye upon potentially the most dangerous woman on the planet.
CHAPTER TEN
It had been a week since the terrible incident at the town and Crenshaw was anxious. During that time Asperathes had become sullen, not mentioning the disaster as though it had not happened. He had not even made any remarks about Moya, had offered no more suggestions that they should kill her. As for Moya herself, there had been no further outbursts. Crenshaw feared she may have become withdrawn over what had happened, but she had accepted that nothing was her fault. She was powerful and not fully trained, and her emotions were getting the better of her. She had not once mentioned the boy whose face she had blown off, and only ever spoke of the town when Crenshaw brought it up.
They had spent the week staying away from major settlements, for Crenshaw did not want to tempt Moya into exploding again. They had also seen no sign of pursuit and surmised the baroness’s soldiers had ceased to search for them. Still with neither weapons nor horses, they were trudging their way across the land, taking their time. Crenshaw was eager to get back to his wife, yet he knew once he returned home his association with Moya might well end. He would have loved to have her remain with him at his home, but that would be Moya’s decision. If she intended to leave him and make her own way in the world, he wanted her to be as stable as she could possibly be.