From Hell's Heart

by K. T. Davies

  The Domina forced a smile. “If it was my decision alone, I would take you at your word. I know Tobias well enough to know he does not suffer fools, but the Third Dawn is not a dictatorship.”

  “Just show us what you can do,” said Rubus.

  “You want me to audition?”

  “I don’t.” The Domina’s gaze tracked to her comrades.

  “No, indeed. You just had your pet poison me.”

  She coughed. “I’ve already apologized for that.”

  “No, you haven’t.”

  “Be that as it may!” It was as though the shout had escaped from her mouth, for she seemed as surprised by the volume of her ire as everyone else. She cleared her throat. “Be that as it may, we would like to see a demonstration of your abilities.”

  “We want to see that you can fight,” Rubus added, his fists bunched in his lap.

  I should have guessed. The patrician class was by and large bloodthirsty, probably something to do with the ruthlessness and brutality they employed to maintain power. “I’m not going to fight my way in. I’m going to sneak. If I have to fight, I’ve fucked it up.”

  “You might have to fight your way out,” Jax added unhelpfully.

  “Enough.” I jumped up, pleased that I didn’t fall over. Swords leaped from scabbards. I turned to give my best, dead-eyed stare to the warriors and saw that Jax was the only one not brandishing steel. He was staring hard at me, his hand poised in the shimmering air. Shit.

  “Your pet hume is a sorcerer?”

  “I am no one’s pet.” Jax unclasped his cloak and let it fall to the ground.

  “This isn’t very fair.” I patted myself down, took a step back, and slipped a coin from my pouch.

  The air thickened. Jax opened his mouth, drew a breathe, and I hurled a silver half-crown in his gob. The mage’s eyes widened, and his face turned puce as the coin flew down his throat. Knowing full well not to give a sorcerer any opportunity whatsoever, I charged him and landed a two-footed kick in his gut while he was occupied fighting for breath. The coin shot from his mouth, and he went down gasping. I ripped his sword from its scabbard, jumped up, and kicked him in the face. His companions rushed me. I set my guard.

  “That’s enough!” the Domina yelled.

  Desperate for a fight, the warriors advanced a step towards me before yielding to her command. I was almost disappointed.

  “It’s hard to cast a spell when you’re choking, eh?” Rubus chuckled.

  The Domina breathed a weary sigh. “Chella, help Jax.”

  I put the sword to his throat. “Before anyone helps anyone, does Jax know the bout is over?” He looked at me through the blood, his eyes filled with hate. I tickled his throat with the tip of his own blade.

  “It is over, I yield,” he croaked. I should have cut his fucking throat, but as I still needed these fools, I stepped back and let his friends help him. I kept hold of the sword. Now that blood had been spilled, the temper of the room changed. The Domina looked weary. Rubus and Three Legs sat quietly.

  “I want—” the Domina began. Her fellow cultist’s heads snapped towards her. “We would like you to rescue Tobias.”

  “In that case, I’ll need a couple of things.”

  “What?”

  “A lot of gold, and the name of the best, shady talismancer in the city.”

  22

  Before leaving the cult headquarters, the Domina gave a rousing speech about oppression and tyranny and how Tobias would now be seen as a symbol of resistance, or some such bollocks. I stopped listening before the clapping started.

  From where I was standing, the leaders of the Third Dawn were only fighting oppression because they were terts. If they’d been born human or warspawn, none of those nobs would have given a rat’s arse about inequality. Which was fair enough, I had no issue with folk fighting for their clan; it was the uruxshit they wrapped it in that I found obnoxious.

  Being as it was the most common malady to afflict sentients, their hypocrisy neither shocked nor surprised me. From what I’d seen in my many and varied lives, when folk beat their breasts about unfairness it was with regards to how that particular unfairness touched them and theirs. I’ve often heard prattlers, pew bashers, and firebrands preach tolerance and respect for one’s fellows in one breath and in the next call for their enemies to be burned at the stake. The Third Dawn was no different; they just thought they were inventing the wheel.

  Choking their pet sorcerer into submission had impressed the idiot trio, and they were only too happy to part with a pile of chink. They also provided the name and directions to the residence of a talismancer who was apparently sympathetic to their cause. I had a feeling that the ‘mancer was more closely aligned to the feel of gold in their pocket than tert rights, but I followed the directions and found myself once more on the outskirts of the city, not far from the cemetery I’d recently visited.

  A well-kept moss garden wrapped around a three-story watermill sat on a bend in one of the many tributaries of the Val. Dotted artfully amid the dense greenery were clumps of blue hosteria. The plants sounded like they were muttering amongst themselves as water gurgled through their translucent stems. Behind the hosteria, plumes of corpse blossom waved gently of their own volition. The ghostly white flowers died almost before they had unfurled their delicate leaves, and the fallen petals turned to silvery ash. The dust was highly prized by perfumers for the sweet smell of recent death it exuded, something I only knew because Mother used to drench herself in the stuff. Here it lay undisturbed, glistening like frost.

  I would have knocked on the door because I’m polite when it comes to sellspells, but it was already open, so I rapped on the lintel and entered. The room had an uneven floor; the salvaged planks were scarred by caulk and stained with tar and smelled of the sea. It was sparsely decorated, with neither rug nor tapestry to soften the sound of a door slamming somewhere above. The hollow echo of footsteps crossed the floor. A skinny human wearing a loose, green silk shirt with enormous sleeves descended the central staircase. His hair was long, tousled blonde and flashed with green. The pungent smell of sulfur, aqua regis, and powder of algaroth clung to him. His face was lean, his cheeks sunken, and his dark eyes fever bright. He smiled, displaying a row of uneven teeth. Strings of beads strung with all manner of charms hung around his scrawny neck and thin wrists. His fingertips were stained black, the marks along with the smell betraying his trade.

  “Hey, sorry, jimma.” A languid smile crossed his face. “I was having this beautiful…” He waved his hand as though to conjure the words he sought from the air, “…Experience. Do you want chai? I want chai. Are you hungry? I’m starving …” Yawning and scratching his stomach, he wandered into a back room. I closed the door behind me, after first checking that none of my new friends had followed me here. An ogren wench was washing her smalls on the opposite side of the river, otherwise the street was empty, and yet I got the distinct, skin-prickling feeling that someone was watching me despite the lack of evidence. I threw the bolt and followed the sound of muttering and giggling and clattering pots into a kitchen. The back wall was thick with pots of mosses and ferns, which were inhabited by a scrabble of amber lizards, each one no longer than a finger.

  “How do you take your chai? Sorry, what did you say your name was?” he asked like I’d already told him.

  “Chas. A friend sent me; said you could help.”

  He laughed like I’d made a joke. “Absolutely. Did you want a talisman?”

  “I didn’t come for the chai.”

  “No?” He laughed sleepily. “But I make wonderful chai.”

  The sound of small hooves clopped across the floor above and down the stairs. “Swann?” The woman was wearing a sheet and a satisfied smile. Dark chestnut curls tumbled around a pair of sweeping ram horns and framed her heart-shaped face. “Swann? Ah. I thought I heard voices. Swann, love. Something’s boiling over.”

  He put the chai pot on the small stove and loped past me like a newbor
n arrachid that wasn’t quite in control of its limbs. “Won’t be a moment.”

  The woman took over chai preparations. As I wasn’t dead, I casually admired her curvaceous behind while she added spice to the pot. The sound of footsteps crossing the floor upstairs was followed by shouting, the whump of a small explosion, and the smell of sulfur. The greasy stink of magic drifted down the stairs.

  When he returned, he was flushed and slightly out of breath. “All sorted. Ah, nice going, Effie.” He poured the chai, and handed each of us a cup. “Effie, this is Chas. Chas, this is Effie.”

  “Good day.” I drank the chai. My empty stomach growled appreciatively. “Can we talk?” I glanced at Effie.

  “Sure, yeah, of course,” said Swann.

  “I need to get in somewhere that is heavily guarded both by mundane and magical means and then I need to get out again with someone else.”

  He raised his eyebrow. “That sounds serious, jimma.”

  “It is. Nice chai, by the way.”

  “Who did you say sent you?”

  “Domina Murcatoria.”

  He and Effie exchanged a weary look. “Come with me,” he said.

  The room directly above the kitchen was filled with arcane paraphernalia. A veritable menagerie of odd little homunculi glared and hissed as we passed their mage locked cages. The art of the talismancer wasn’t something I’d ever studied or been interested in, and this was why. It required a lot of things. Dozens of intricate charts were pinned to the walls and scattered across worktables. Faded chalk circles marked the scorched and acid pitted floorboards, and half a dozen or so thuribles and censers hung at skull cracking height from the rafters. Beakers and flasks hissed and bubbled on small stoves that were lined up on a tiled bench. Beyond this room I caught a glimpse of a cozy bedchamber, warmed by rainbow light falling through a jewel-paned window. The gangling talismancer continued upstairs, I followed.

  This room was altogether easier on the senses. The rough plank walls had been covered by scrollwork panels. The tarred deck covered with sumptuous rugs of extraordinary complex weaves. I was calm and filled with a sense of wellbeing. A small side table was set with a crystal decanter of ruby wine and three crystal glasses as fragile as spun light.

  “Please, sit down, Chas.” Swann folded his long limbs on the floor beside the table and poured a glass of wine.

  I sat down because it was the polite thing to do; indeed, I imagined that the geas woven into the beautiful rugs precluded anything but politeness, and I didn’t mind one bit because it was a very gentle compulsion. Had I not been a sorcerer, I wouldn’t even have noticed the subtle power the patterns exerted.

  “What can I do for you, Chas?” he asked as he handed me the glass. Its stem was as fragile as a sliver of ice.

  “I need to get into the most heavily guarded prison in Valen.”

  “You don’t need me for that, jimma. Just commit a crime.”

  “I need to get in, and I need to get out again with someone else, without being detected by magic, or being seen.”

  His eyes widened at that. “You don’t want much. I take it you mean the Leads?”

  I took a sip of wine. As it was more a statement than a question, I felt under no compunction to answer and, because I didn’t like being under the influence of a geas, I chose not to, just to be obtuse.

  He chuckled softly. “Let me rephrase that. Do you intend to break into the Leads?”

  “Yes. Nice wine by the way. Is it Pharrian?”

  “Yes. That’s expensive.”

  “The wine or the magic?”

  “Both.” He closed his eyes, put his hands on his knees, and seemed to fall asleep. As I was feeling relaxed and at home, I drained my glass and poured myself another. I could have stayed here all day, all night, all fucking year. This was the most delightful place I had ever been. After what felt like an hour or so, Swann opened his eyes. For a second they seemed to swim with sparks.

  “Two hundred and fifty crowns, but I can’t hide you from magic and from sight.” He stretched and rolled his shoulders.

  “What do you mean, you can’t do both? For two hundred and fifty crowns I’d expect you to send angels to escort me.”

  He laughed. “Sorry, I’m all out. The thing is, I can get you in, and I can hide you from magic, even imperial magic, by temporarily changing your elemental essence. But only because the magic required to do those things is compatible.” He clamped his hands together. “Do you see how they go together?”

  “Not really.”

  He scratched his head. “The essence required to afford you ingress is the same as that which will hide you from magic. I can almost certainly guarantee to achieve both of those aims. However, the energy of the essential magic required to hide you from mortal sight is in opposition. It would be like…” He again stirred the air with a slender hand in search of an analogy. “It would be like mixing lamp oil with seawater.”

  “If you say so. Put aside hiding me from mortal sight. What about hiding anyone with me from wards?”

  He shrugged. “On the way out?

  I nodded.

  “That should work as long as they stay close to the charm, but I can’t guarantee it.”

  “In that case, two hundred.”

  “What? No. The price is two hundred and fifty.”

  “But if I can’t get the person out, there’s no point getting me in.”

  “If your doubts, reflected in your reduced offer, are confirmed, you won’t be able to spend the money you save, will you?”

  “I could leave it to my kin.”

  “Two hundred and fifty.”

  “Very well.” The fact that his demand was just the right side of reasonable empowered the geas in the room, and before I knew it, I was counting out the gold on the mesmerizing carpet. He withdrew to another room and returned with a wooden box inlaid with bone, from which he drew a talisman on a silver chain.

  “This will render you invisible to magical wards and allow you to enter the keep.” He rummaged in a box and took out three clay tablets, each the size of a gold crown. “These will get you in and out. You will have to go via the drains, and you won’t be able to take anything with you. The Leads is a nightmare of eldritch contrivances and esoteric conundrums.”

  “Eh?”

  “It’s a tough nut to crack. I’ve had to spend a lot of time with necromancers in order to work out the correct angle of ingress.”

  “But I need my weapons.”

  “You strike me as the resourceful kind. I’m sure you’ll find what you need once you’re in.”

  That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. “I can’t break into a prison without weapons.”

  “Then you’re not going to break into the Leads. Next to the Empirifex’s water closet, it’s the most impregnable building in the Empire, magically speaking. You can leave your weapons and armor here.” His gaze tracked to a large, barrel-topped chest. I know it’s impossible, but I got the distinct impression that the brass-bound box was looking at me.

  “In that?”

  “Aye, and I assure you, should the world cease to turn, whatever you put inside will be safe. It belonged to a powerful sorcerer.”

  About an hour later, and two-hundred and fifty crowns lighter, I was standing by the river in just my shirt and breeches. Boats laden with cargo and passengers plied the waterways beneath the implacable wall, which enclosed the old palace and its prison, known to most as the Leads.

  The sound of an armored patrol marching on the other side of the wall reminded me that the task ahead was quite possibly suicidal. Or worse. On my way over here, I’d had the misfortune to pass one of the three gates into the palace compound. Set on spikes above it, as a warning to those who would dare the wrath of the Empirifex, were half a dozen tarred heads. That the heads wailed and cried as the crows pecked at their burned flesh was a testament not only to the skill of the necromancer, but also of the brutality of the Empirifex.

  I thumbed the talisman. The chain
was a subtle, eldritch thing that seemed to have been spun from moonlight and fish skin. The amulet itself was made of brachuri bone that had been carved to look like a kraken’s tentacle or some soppy cull’s fishy fingers. A tiny aegis bag hung from it, in which the other tablets would be kept while whatever happened, happened. I hung the chain around my neck, felt the talisman’s power run through me.

  Swann had been kind enough, for no extra cost, to show me a floorplan of the prison and the adjoining palace. Murcatoria wasn’t sure, but she’d given me an idea of where a prisoner of Tobias’s stature would be held, so between them, I now had a good idea of where I was headed. The Domina had also told me where she thought his mother might be, but I had no intention of rescuing her, given that saving him would be hard enough.

  A barge slid past. Two coves were bent over rudder and oars. A third towed it along the narrow path where I was sitting with a fishing pole I’d found. When they sailed around the corner of the wall, I bit my thumb and rubbed the blood on the tentacle.

  I’d felt my knees turn to water before, but not quite this literally. Indeed, the whole of me turned to water or a substance close enough to fool not only the wards, but also my senses. As I spilled into the river my first instinct was to gasp and attempt to draw breath, which is impossible when a body lacks not only a mouth, but also lungs. Without eyes I somehow managed to see my clothes sink into the murky darkness. Caught in a current, my shirt seemed to wave a forlorn goodbye as it was swept away. I might have panicked, but when you’re nothing but the memory of flesh, it’s impossible to gauge just how frantic you are. I tried to swim into the keep in the usual way, which I couldn’t because I was a limbless thing. I resisted the rising tide of panic that was threatening to overwhelm me and willed my perception through the sluice gate beneath the dread fortress’s wall.

  This was when things got very peculiar. There is an affliction I’ve seen where coves cry if they are forced into confined spaces, indeed it is a well-recognized torture as any noble with an oubliette in their basement can attest. I have never been so afflicted…until now, when my conscious will directed me to a drain that I hoped would take me into the Leads. The pipe I directed myself along was narrower than my mortal head and claggy with greasy detritus, which made me grateful that I didn’t have the requisite apparatus with which to smell, taste, or feel.