Black Stone Heart (The Obsidian Path Book 1)

by Michael R. Fletcher

  I counted an hour, and tried again.

  And found myself sitting in our room in the Dripping Bucket. It was clean, the bed made. Everything was as I remembered.

  I realized suddenly I’d left my Septk knives somewhere. The floating mountains? The wizard’s tower? I had no idea. Exhausted, I lay on the bed and fell asleep.

  Hours later new tenants arrived and I left before the innkeeper was tempted to a more violent ejection. They watched me leave with their hating eyes and curled lips. Stained-soul they called me behind my back. Darker.

  They had no idea.

  Outside, the sky was thick with heavy clouds, billowing curtains of stained spider-silk, threatening rain. A storm brewed on the horizon. Flashes of distant lightning lit the clouds from above, a nightmare of warring colours. Cancerous yellow. The sick purple of old bruises gone gangrenous. Cold winds crashed in from the north, tearing the heat from me. I was, I realized, rather under-dressed. In my absence, summer had passed into fall. My clothes, chosen in the dark, were a gaudy clash of bright silks and jade green cotton pants probably meant as pyjamas.

  I watched the crush of pedestrians, everyone rushing to complete their errands before the storm arrived.

  Where would the wizards take Shalayn?

  Probably to another damned wizard’s tower I couldn’t get into.

  But which one? A dozen or more surrounded the city, and several more lay beyond the wall.

  I turned, looking toward the colossal tower at the heart of Taramlae. Shalayn said it was the seat of government for both the capital, and the entire kingdom. I couldn’t call it an empire; the wizards hadn’t earned that.

  The tower dominated the city. A lurking presence, its shadow crawling over all beneath it as the day progressed. Unlike the others, this one had windows, but I couldn’t fool myself that it was any more accessible.

  At least not to a long-dead demonologist.

  But I thought I might know someone who could get me in. If she wanted to.

  And if she didn’t want to, I’d force her. She tricked us. Sending me to get that ring for her had been a trap. I had no doubt she knew it would take me away. After, when she was no longer useful, I’d take great pleasure in killing her. I’d do it once Shalayn was somewhere safe. She’d never need to know.

  As I set off toward the cafe where Shalayn and I met Tien, lightning slashed the sky. Thunder shattered the air and the heavens unleashed their fury. In moments I was soaked and shivering.

  I laughed as I walked. “Heavens.”

  Why could I readily believe in hells, but not in heavens?

  I suppose having been to one helped.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  With the onslaught of rain, the streets emptied fast. Those caught far from their destination ducked their heads as they ran, as if that might save them from a soaking. Wet as I already was, I maintained my pace. Rage warmed me. Against that, the rain was nothing. Lightning smashed the sky, licking at that lumpen turd of a tower at the heart of the city.

  If the wizards hurt Shalayn, they would pay.

  If they’d already killed her, if I was too late, I’d bring the tower down. I’d pull the entire city apart, bury them in the rubble of their pathetic kingdom. I’d drown them in blood. I didn’t care how long it took. I could return to the floating mountains any time. I’d take a supply of food and study with Nhil until I knew enough to bring utter ruin upon my enemies.

  And Tien. Even if she helped me rescue Shalayn, she would pay for her treachery.

  Should I pretend naive innocence, act like I had no idea she tried to kill me by trapping me in some hell? Confronting her would tip her off that I knew the truth, make her wary. Better to be stupid so she underestimated me. That grated, but I was in no position to face a wizard, even a petty one like Tien. I felt sure her talk of boiling blood was bravado, but knew nothing of her power.

  The storm turned the steps leading down to the cafe into a cascading waterfall of swirling mud. Ankle deep, it did nothing to cool my anger. Water poured through the ceiling, into the many buckets littering the floor and customers’ tables. I didn’t see the point.

  Tien stood in her regular place, sipping coffee. Her eyes widened in shock when she saw me, but she recovered quickly.

  “You’ve lost weight,” she said. Glancing away and drawing a deep breath.

  For an instant I saw something, worry or regret, and then it was gone, masked in the facade of uncaring she habitually wore. Eyes hooded, she watched me, waiting.

  “They took Shalayn,” I said. “The wizards.”

  She blinked and I caught a flash of confusion. “The wizards.” She gnawed on her lower lip.

  “Yes. We were trapped in the tower and they took her.”

  She studied me, weighing some decision. “But you got out. You got out before they came. You left her.” An accusation.

  “Not by choice.” I locked my anger down deep, kept it from my voice and eyes.

  “You’ve been gone months. I assumed you were dead.” She snarled, bearing teeth. “I should boil your blood.”

  I raised my hand, showed her the ring she sent me to get, the one-way portal demon to the floating mountain. Her trap.

  Her breath caught. “I knew it. As soon as I realized it was that tower, I knew it.”

  I didn’t ask, didn’t care. “Help me get her back, and it’s yours.”

  She laughed without humour. “Can’t use it. I’m not a demonologist.”

  I didn’t bother to deny the accusation.

  “It took me somewhere—”

  “Where?”

  “Doesn’t matter. It took me months to get back.”

  She had questions, but swallowed them.

  I told her about how Shalayn and I had been trapped inside the wizard’s tower. I told her, without details, that I returned, starved and weak, and that the lights went out shortly after my arrival. Her eyebrows twitched at that.

  “If you’d only been moments sooner,” she said.

  I nodded agreement, frustrated at my failure.

  She stood in silence, examining her coffee, fingers drawing circles around the chipped edge of the cup. Looking up, she gestured at my famine-ravaged body. “You’re rather thin on details.”

  “Very droll.”

  “You won’t tell me where you were, how you got there, or how you got back.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “But here you are. Asking for help, I assume?”

  “Yes. I have to get Shalayn back. If you can get me into the tower,” I nodded in the vague direction of the centre of Taramlae, “I can get her out.” I prayed the Soul Stone had at least one soul left. Nhil said it would move me, and anything I was carrying. Would Shalayn count? My advanced state of starvation at the time of my lessons left those days a haze of unreality.

  “You’re insane,” she said. “There are thousands of wizards in there including scores of Battle Mages. That’s suicide. And if they capture you, they’ll torture you, and you’ll tell them all about me. No.”

  “If that happens, I’ll tell them about you anyway, even if you don’t help me. How do they feel about thieving wizards helping others break into their towers?”

  “I should kill you now.” She leaned back, took a sip of coffee.

  “You’re going to help me,” I said, suddenly sure she would.

  Tien grunted annoyance. “Maybe. But I’m not doing this for nothing.”

  Anger built in me and I crushed it, pushing it down deep. Rage wouldn’t help me here. I needed this mage, and she knew it. Later, I reminded myself, once I had Shalayn back, I’d have my vengeance.

  “Helping Shalayn isn’t reason enough?”

  She flinched a little. “No.”

  “What do you want?” I ground out.

  “You bound a demon. I don’t know how, but you did. I want a demon. You’re going to command it to obey me.”

  That was a dangerous line of thought. “That’s just it, that’s why I got taken away.
I couldn’t bind it.” It was only a slight lie.

  She eyed me with distrust. “The ring,” she said, leaning forward. “It teleported you somewhere.”

  “Sort of.”

  She glanced at the other ring on my hand, the white gold one I’d bound Felkrish to. “That’s a different ring.”

  “It is.”

  “What’s in it? A demon? What can it do?”

  “It’s just a ring,” I lied. “I took it to sell. I have no money.”

  She examined me through disbelieving eyes.

  “How about the other one then, the one I sent you to get.”

  That ring would only take her to the floating mountains, to my secret sanctuary. Did she know that? The thought of her there, a wizard in my castle, sent a shiver of revulsion through me. She’d likely starve to death beyond the walls like everyone else, but she was a mage and a thief.

  “No,” I said.

  “No?”

  She waved at the man behind the counter for another coffee. He brought her one, splashing through the water on the floor that now reached up to his shins, and ignored me. A dead rat floated past, carrying with it a faint sewer stench.

  “It doesn’t work like that,” I explained. “The ring only goes to one place. You’d be stuck there. Like I was.”

  “You got back.”

  I definitely didn’t want to tell her of Nhil and the castle, and summoning and binding a demon. “I had help. Help you would not receive.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re a wizard.”

  She thought about that as she sipped her coffee. “So, it was either a demonologist who helped you, or an actual demon.”

  I shrugged rather than answer.

  “I never believed all the demonologists were dead. There had to be some left, somewhere.” Her attention locked on my hand, on the second ring. She put two and two together and got five which was a lot closer to four than I liked. “You lied about your new ring. This demonologist gave it to you. It has a demon bound to it, doesn’t it? That’s how you got back.”

  Hell. What could I tell her? “The cost of using it…”

  “Cost?”

  “Demons eat souls.”

  “I thought that was Guild bullshit.”

  “It isn’t.”

  “But you used it to get back, and you’re still wearing it. You’re wearing pyjamas and you stink. You look destitute. If there wasn’t something useful in that ring you’d sell it for the three hundred or so bronze it’s worth and buy clothes and food and a nice room at the Dripping Bucket. So, there’s a demon still in there, and you know how to use it.” She grinned sweetly.

  I opened my mouth to argue and she silenced me with a look of disgust. I was an idiot. I should have hidden the ring before coming to see her.

  “You keep the ring,” she said, “but you’re going to use it to do something for me.”

  “You’re okay with sacrificing a soul to do this?” I definitely didn’t want to tell her about the Soul Stone.

  “No, but you are.”

  I ground my teeth because she was right.

  “What are you willing to do to get Shalayn back?” she asked.

  “Anything.”

  She winced at that, a small stab of guilt cracking her uncaring exterior. “So, we have an agreement?” she asked.

  “We do. But I get Shalayn out first.” I stalled her argument by talking over her. “You know Shalayn won’t let me renege on an agreement, so don’t even bother. I’m not doing anything for you until she’s been rescued. We don’t have time for anything else.”

  Sipping coffee, she pursed her lips and stared into the mug, lost in thought. She closed her eyes, bit her bottom lip, and sighed. Finally, she nodded. “Fine.” She looked like she wanted to change her mind.

  “How are we getting in?” I asked.

  “We are not. I like my life too much to do something this stupid.” She smirked. “You will go in dressed as a wizard.”

  “It can’t be that simple.”

  “It isn’t. Guild members have a Chain of Office that gets them in. Without that, the Battle Mages at the gate will burn you to ash before you set foot within. We’re going to have to steal one.”

  “Luckily, I seem to have fallen in with thieves.”

  Tien gave a mocking bow. “Now it gets ugly. There are ranks within the Guild, and the Chain of Office defines your rank. It also defines your access privileges. An acolyte’s Chain will get you into the tower, but nowhere useful. We have to steal one from a ranked mage.”

  I cursed the delay, but saw no way to avoid it. I knew nothing of wizards and their Guild, and even less about their tower at the heart of Taramlae.

  Tien glanced at me. “Will that new ring help with this?”

  Assuming there were still souls in the Souls Stone, Felkrish could take me to any memorized location.

  “Maybe,” I said. “Is there a potential target with a predictable routine? Someone who goes somewhere we could access when they aren’t around.”

  Tien considered this. “Master Thalman is a filthy old man with a weakness for whores. But it won’t help. He’s protected by a squad of Battle Mages. They search every room before he enters the brothel. And they use magic. They’d find you.”

  “I won’t be there when they search, I’ll arrive after.”

  “Right. Of course. If Thalman sticks to his usual schedule, he’ll be there in an hour.”

  And therein lay the problem with the plan. “I need to get in there first and spend time memorizing the location. I’ll need several uninterrupted hours. Some place small, like a closet, would be best. Some place that doesn’t change.”

  She nodded, taking in the information. I wished I hadn’t had to share it.

  I wanted to charge into the tower now, cut my way past the Battle Mage guards, and rescue Shalayn. It would be suicide.

  Another thought occurred to me. This plan involved using yet another soul from the Soul Stone. Two, actually. The more I thought about it, the higher the cost became. I’d need a soul to get in to the brothel, and one to get out. Then, once I’d used the Chain of Office to get into the tower, I’d need another soul to get Shalayn out. How casually I spent them now. I had to hope there were still souls to be used. For that matter, where was I going to have the demon take me when I left the brothel? My attempt at returning to the Dripping Bucket had met with many failures, and I knew there were new guests in the room now. I considered the floating mountain, but couldn’t face the thought of more starvation if getting there spent the last soul.

  Having spent years in my mud shack, I knew its every nook and cranny. Did I want to take her there? I’d been away for months, half a year or more. What if it had changed or fallen down? I’d continually been patching holes and maintaining it. What if I got into the tower, found Shalayn, and then had nowhere to take her?

  I sagged. No way around it, I’d have to spend more time before I rescued Shalayn. There was little choice.

  “I have to memorize somewhere in the city to escape to as well,” I admitted. “Somewhere that won’t change. Somewhere simple, without too much detail to memorize.”

  “I have the perfect place,” said Tien.

  Much as I hated to trust her, much as every part of me knew she’d betray me at the first chance, I had no choice.

  “Let’s do that first. After, you can get me into whatever room this Thalman will use?”

  “Of course. And you will have to hire a whore while you’re there. Otherwise people will ask questions.”

  I glared at Tien and she ignored me, examining her perfect fingernails. Something foul floated by, bumping against the leg of our table and leaving behind a brown stain.

  “Why the hell do you hang out in this dump? You don’t seem the type.”

  “Best coffee in Taramlae.”

  “Another problem. I don’t have any money.”

  “I have to buy you a whore?”

  I nodded.

  She
made a show of looking annoyed, but dropped a purse on the table.

  After an hour of wandering through the torrential downpour, we arrived at a rundown home that would have been in the shadow of the outer wall had there been enough sun for shadows. It looked ready to fall in.

  “It’s a bolthole,” she explained. “One of many.”

  Somehow, she’d managed to stay completely dry.

  Tien led me inside, walking with an exaggerated strut, hips swaying and provocative. Having been alone with a demonic old man for months, I was unready to deal with the distraction, and unable to ignore it.

  Tien glanced over her shoulder. “Hungry?”

  “What? I…”

  “You looked like you were in need of a little…something.” An eyebrow twitched.

  I’d been behind her, but staring at her ass. Somehow, she knew. Damn this teenage body! I blinked. Where had that thought come from?

  I followed Tien through the dilapidated house. Rain fell through dozens of holes in the ceiling. The floor groaned and squeaked as we crossed. An odour of mould and rot filled the air.

  “This looks abandoned,” I said.

  “Kind of the point.”

  She pushed open a door, exposing the room beyond. The floor had fallen in, and I saw the basement, rotting timbers and mud, through the gaping hole. It stank like death.

  “Wrong room?” I asked.

  Tien winked. The hole disappeared, leaving the floor flat and dry. The walls were painted a soft pink and the door Tien held open suddenly look very sturdy indeed. A single bed, big enough for two, sat in one corner. Shelves, laden with supplies of all kinds, and jars of preserved foods, lined the walls.

  “Simple illusion,” she said, entering.

  Glancing back, I saw the rest of the house remained unchanged. I followed her in.

  “Will this do?” Tien asked, hand on a cocked hip.

  “Perfect.”

  “Shall I wait on the bed for you?”

  She batted lashes at me and I felt a twitch of desire. She was small and cute, very much unlike Shalayn, but sexy as hell. At least to a nineteen-year-old who’d been alone for longer than he could remember.

  “No. I need the room empty.” I didn’t want to explain why, or mention that if anything changed, I would be unable to return.