Magic Below Paris Complete Series Boxed Set (Books 1 - 8): Trading Into Shadow, Trading Into Darkness, Trading Close to Light, Trading By Firelight, Trading by Shroomlight, plus 3 more

by C. M. Simpson

  The team followed, not one of them saying a word. Gerry, Zeb, and Izmay had re-tied gauze strips over their eyes, and stayed close to their partners. They still kept a wary eye on their surroundings, but Marsh didn’t think they could see much farther than a few feet.

  The rest of the team surveyed the country around them, Master Envermet and Marsh dividing their attention between scanning the area and following the kat. Mordan stalked through bushes and leapt from the top of one pile of rubble to another. Every now and then, she’d pause to sniff one patch of ground or another before changing direction.

  Her movements showed them the path the assassin had taken when he’d approached the camp the first time. The assassin hadn’t camped too far away, but the site he’d chosen was well-hidden. Without Mordan, they’d never have found it.

  She guided them through piles of rubble that were swiftly being reclaimed by a wilderness of gardens gone to seed. In the shade of a large tree surrounded by a thorny barrier of sweet-smelling flowers, they came to another wooden door.

  This one was barred from the outside. Mordan sniffed at it, looked at Master Envermet, and walked away, disappearing back the way they’d come.

  We’re here, Marsh noted, and figured the kat would find a suitable platform to sun herself on while they investigated.

  I sense no one, Master Envermet remarked, and Roeglin concurred.

  “Let me,” Henri said when they hesitated, and both men stepped aside.

  They stepped back farther when Izmay came alongside Henri, her hands braced as though she held a spear. She caught Marsh’s look.

  “You said our weapons were shadowed air, right?”

  Marsh nodded.

  “Well, you were right.”

  Marsh heard faint sounds of enlightenment from Gerry and Zeb but didn’t turn around. No doubt, the two shadow guards were testing the theory. She hoped they figured it out, and she focused on Henri as he lifted the bar.

  He moved quickly and quietly, setting the bar aside before cautiously opening the door. The room beyond was shrouded in darkness, and Izmay pulled the gauze from her eyes as she stepped in. Master Envermet followed, calling a sword from the black, and Marsh followed.

  Roeglin came after her, but the room was empty.

  It was simply furnished but clearly a regular haunt.

  “A home away from home,” Henri murmured, turning slowly to take it in.

  Marsh followed his gaze and had to agree. The whole place was clean and orderly and well-appointed. It made her wonder if there was another location the assassin called home.

  A simple table and chair stood in the center of the room atop a sturdy woven rug. Heavy drapes curtained off a section of wall, and a desk and bookcase took up another.

  There were no windows, Marsh noted, but there was a small stone-floored area for cooking and two more heavy wooden doors in the rear wall. One was locked.

  “I wonder where they go,” Roeglin murmured and froze, holding up his hand.

  Silence. Master Envermet’s command echoed through Marsh’s head, and the team stilled.

  Roeglin signaled to Henri and pointed at the door. The big man moved quickly to it, Izmay shadowing him, spear in hand. A quick hand count of three saw him slide the bolt back and step through, sword in hand.

  Izmay followed with her spear, and Roeglin moved after, pulling twin blades from the air as he went. Marsh stepped to the door and stopped. The room beyond was too small for more people to enter...and those inside it were no threat to anyone.

  They were sleeping, their breathing deep and even. Neither of them moved when Henri prodded them with the toe of his boot. Both had been covered with thin blankets, and it took Roeglin a moment to point to the chains running from beneath them to the wall.

  “They’re not going anywhere,” he noted.

  “We need a key,” Izmay observed and looked at Marsh. “Did you find one when you searched him?”

  She could only mean the assassin, and Marsh shook her head. “No.”

  The shadow guard came out of the cell, releasing her spear to the daylight or wherever she’d drawn it from. “Then it has to be in here somewhere.”

  Her face was marked by anger as she inspected the wall closest to the door.

  “Leave them,” Master Envermet ordered. “We’ll find the key and release them when they wake.”

  “Do you know how long they’ll sleep?” Izmay wanted to know.

  “Pretty sure he wasn’t planning on carrying them unconscious,” Henri remarked and moved to the other door, “which means we’re either close to where he needs to go, or...” He pulled the door open, his voice taking on a satisfied note. “Or he has some kind of transport nearby.”

  “Nice!” Zeb commented, following after him.

  Marsh caught the scent of a stable and heard the rustle of straw as animals moved in their stalls. One gave a rumbling snort. The sound was followed by the rhythmic scrape of a hoof pawing at the floor.

  “Someone’s hungry,” Henri noted and started talking to the creature. “Easy there, boy. I’ve got your food. Yours, too,” he added, answering a second snort.

  “I’ll get the water,” Zeb told him. “This is a nice setup.”

  “Too nice for an asshole,” Henri declared.

  Marsh left them to it and joined Izmay in her search for the key. They left the door to the cell open, and Roeglin emerged a few moments later.

  “They’re too deeply under for me to get anything out of them,” he said. “We’ll have to ask them when they wake up.”

  Izmay was searching the main room, so Marsh started on the kitchen. She paused when she opened a tall cabinet she’d thought was a pantry.

  “We need a druid,” she said, and Master Envermet crossed to see what she’d found.

  The cabinet before her contained neatly tied bundles of herbs. Many hung upside-down against the door, but the cupboard also held cloth bags carefully separated in stone dishes, clay jars sealed tight with wax, and bottles in which stems or flowers were suspended in different-colored liquids.

  “I hope the food’s kept somewhere else,” Henri commented, looking over their shoulders. He reached past them and pulled a key off a hook partially concealed by a tall bottle filled with plant stems and yellow liquid. “At least we found the key.”

  “A key,” Marsh corrected. “We found a key,” but Henri had already left

  “We’ll see...” he called back, tossing the key to Izmay.

  Marsh ignored them as they went back into the cell. Master Envermet studied the cabinet’s contents. “I’ll let Sulema know,” he decided and closed the door again. “I doubt anything in there is edible.”

  They were interrupted by the furry weight of a wolf. It refused to move as Master Envermet tried to close the door. Marsh looked down at it, recognizing the she-wolf who had been the last to demand a connection to her.

  The wolf renewed that connection now, curiosity flooding from her mind to Marsh’s. What was in the cupboard that was so interesting? Was it edible? Disapproval came as she caught the mélange of smells.

  How could they focus on any one scent with so many crowded together? Why were they interested? Some of this stuff was not to be eaten! Or rolled in... The wolf backed away.

  What did the humans want to know? Did they wish to find their hunter’s other lair?

  “Yes,” Marsh told it aloud. “Yes, we want to find his other lair. We want to destroy the other hunters before they come seeking.”

  Master Envermet cocked his head to one side, and Marsh knew he was inside her head, observing the link to the wolf. The wolf sneezed, and Mordan padded through the door.

  What is going on?

  The wolf answered her question with a series of images: the contents of the cupboard, the assassin riding up a road made of broken rocks and the remains of an ancient thoroughfare, a townhouse of stone set a little bit apart from more old buildings repaired using materials from the surrounding Devastation.

  The she
-wolf relayed Marsh’s desire to find the place, marking it as a hostile lair.

  “Looks like we’ll have to kill two birds with one stone,” Master Envermet commented, plucking the images from Marsh’s head.

  “Four,” Marsh corrected him. “Kearick and Salazar should be there.”

  She highlighted the image of a large stone building standing at one end of the settlement. It had only been fleeting, but she was sure it held the library she’d glimpsed when Kearick had fled through the portal.

  “Four,” the shadow captain agreed.

  Izmay and Henri emerged from the cell, defeated.

  “Wrong key,” Izmay muttered shortly, handing it back to Henri. “See if you can find what it does fit.”

  Henri shrugged, and Izmay resumed their search. Izmay glanced at Roeglin. “They’re still sleeping.”

  He nodded. “They’re okay,” he told her, answering the question she didn’t dare ask. “Probably the same stuff he used on the mule.”

  At the mention of the mules, Aisha turned back to the door. “I’ll go get them.”

  Tamlin was a fraction faster than Brigitte and grabbed the girl before she’d moved more than two steps. “Not yet.”

  Thunderclouds gathered in the girl’s face. “When?”

  “Soon,” Master Envermet reassured her. “We’ll ask Mordan and the wolves to help.”

  “Scruffy knows,” Aisha informed him, and Marsh realized the pup and Perdemor had been missing all morning.

  Master Envermet groaned. “I should have seen that coming.”

  Marsh refrained from adding he wasn’t the only one. She glared at the child. “Go and sit at the table.”

  For a second, Aisha looked like she might refuse, but in the end, she shrugged her way out of Tamlin’s grasp and stomped over to do what she was told. She flounced into one of the chairs and slouched there, her arms firmly folded over her chest. “Fine.”

  “Bien,” Marsh told her and turned back to Master Envermet. “We need to find the key. We can’t leave them here.”

  “Can’t leave the mules here, either,” Henri added, opening the curtains and peering into the sleeping space behind them.

  The key fit the chest tucked under the bed.

  “Gotcha, you sonuvabitch.”

  He pulled the chest out and lifted the lid, the scrape echoing through both rooms. Master Envermet went to see what he’d found. “It’s a shame we can’t kill him again.”

  His voice was still calm, but it was colder somehow, anger threading through it as though he had caught hold of his outrage and refused to let it go.

  “Those poor kids.” Izmay’s voice was full of horror. “We can’t...”

  A soft rustle reached Marsh’s ears, and Roeglin lifted his head.

  Quiet, he sent and they listened, ears straining. Outside birds whistled, and leaves shivered, but the sound they heard was neither. It was movement, not from outside where part of the wolf pack waited, but from the cell, whose only occupants should still have been sleeping.

  Marsh shifted slightly, becoming one with the shadows and drifting over to the door. The room beyond no longer held two people. A third figure had appeared and was bending over them, reaching for their chains.

  Pulling a blade from the darkness, Marsh slipped through the door.

  17

  Unexpected Additions

  Something alerted the figure as Marsh moved toward it. It turned, dropping the chain and raising both hands.

  Marsh realized this was no assassin, but a boy just a few years younger than herself—a very frightened teen.

  “Please...” he begged. “Don’t hurt me.”

  He stumbled back, reaching for the wall, then stopped, eyes brimming with tears and wide with terror. Roeglin stepped into the room behind Marsh.

  “We won’t hurt you,” he soothed, reaching out to draw Marsh into his mind.

  Put the sword away, he instructed, and Marsh let the weapon dissipate.

  Now that she was in Roeglin’s head, she could see the grip he had on the boy’s mind...and why.

  “You got them out?” she asked, and the youngster’s eyes shifted.

  “Basil?” she asked, snagging the name as Roeglin dug it out.

  The boy flinched.

  “How do you know?” he whispered, and Roeglin opened his eyes. “Oh.”

  His shoulders sagged in defeat. “Please don’t make us go back. You can say you never found us...”

  “We’re not raiders,” Marsh told him, her words abrupt with distaste, “but we can’t just leave you here. It’s not safe.”

  “I heard what you said. If you make us go with you, we’ll be captured again. It’ll be just like handing us over.”

  “No, it won’t.”

  “You can’t know that. Just let us go.”

  “We can’t do that.”

  “Don’t you have any mercy?”

  Marsh laid a hand on his shoulder, and he trembled.

  “We will not let them have you. Understand?”

  His eyes said he was still afraid, but he nodded when Roeglin released him and then stayed put, his eyes darting from Roeglin and Marsh to the two sleeping figures on the floor.

  “You shouldn’t go near them either,” he told them, “and we can’t afford to. They...”

  His face paled, and he twisted his hands together.

  “We know,” Henri interrupted from the door. “We know what they do. We know the price they’ll pay for your return, and what it’ll cost you.”

  Marsh turned as he lifted a piece of parchment.

  “Like the mages said, we’re not letting them have you.”

  He stepped aside as Master Envermet looked inside. “But you are coming with us,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument.

  The boy cast another glance at the two sleeping on the floor. “Are they okay?” he whispered.

  “Yes, but we don’t know how long they’ll sleep, and we’re looking for the key.” Master Envermet indicated the chains.

  The kid lifted his head. “Don’t need one.”

  He didn’t stop to explain but turned back to the chains. This time, he knelt beside one of the sleepers.

  “Who are they to you?” Marsh asked, and his shoulders tensed.

  “My brother and sister.” His voice choked, and he hunched in on himself. “I promised...”

  “And you nearly failed,” Roeglin reminded him.

  The kid flinched; Marsh thought the mind mage was being a bit harsh. Roeglin held up a hand, and they edged closer to see what the boy was doing. The chain links parted beneath his hands, and he set them aside.

  Roeglin persisted. “They nearly caught you.”

  The kid nodded and went to work on the next chain. “If the remnant hadn’t started howling like they’d caught something, I’d have been found.”

  The remnant? Marsh wondered. So it hadn’t been the assassin who’d been chasing him.

  “The raiders discovered I was gone before I was clear of the wall. I had to wait for them to go out ahead of me before I could get out of the town. They had some kind of mind mage with them.” He glanced at Roeglin. “No offense.”

  Roeglin shook his head. “None taken. Mages are human, too. Not all of us are nice.”

  “You can say that again,” the boy grumbled as he undid the next shackle.

  The sleeper twitched her foot, and he patted her ankle. “Sshh, Vi. Sshh. I’m here.”

  Vi gave a soft sigh and turned onto her side, nestling beneath the blanket. Basil watched her settle and relaxed. “She’s horrible when she wakes up.”

  As if his words were a signal, the girl gave a start and sat up, yanking her feet out of his reach and scrambling to stand. “Goddammit, Baz! Where in all the rutting...” Her voice petered out as she realized where they were and that they were not alone.

  “No...” she moaned, backing up, then noticed their younger brother at her feet and stopped.

  Her face grew hard, and she stepped in front of him
. “You can’t have them,” she snarled, dropping into a fighting stance.

  Where does one so young learn that particular position? Master Envermet pondered, laying a hand on Marsh’s shoulder and moving her aside.

  “We’re not here to take them,” he told her. “We are not raiders.”

  She remained tense, then suddenly darted forward and lashed out at the shadow captain with her foot. “You stay out of my rutting head, you...you arschloch!”

  Master Envermet caught her foot and released it. “That is not nice language for a young lady.”

  She barked a bitter laugh. “You should hear my ma when she gets going.”

  Master Envermet’s eyebrows rose. “Well,” he managed, “I guess you had to learn it somewhere.”

  “Don’t you worry, mister. The raiders taught us plenty.” She’d returned to her original position, but she hadn’t relaxed. “Who the fuck are you, anyway.”

  Master Envermet frowned. “Young lady, if I hear one more cuss word out of your mouth, I am going to put you over my knee.”

  “You and whose fucking army?” was followed by a startled yelp as the shadow captain lunged forward and seized her wrist. Seconds later, he’d dropped to one knee and had her bent over it, after which he quickly released her, pushing her back to her brothers.

  “I don’t need an army,” he told her, and Marsh caught regret that he’d had to follow through on his threat—and the absolute certainty that there would have been more trouble if he hadn’t.

  Behind the girl, Basil sputtered with laughter. “Serves you right, Vi. Now, calm down. They’re going to help us.”

  His voice sounded sure, but his face pleaded for that to be true.

  “They’re not going to touch us!” the girl declared, and Basil looked worried.

  “Until you made them prove a point, they hadn’t,” he told her. “Trust you to pick a fight with a mage.”

  “A mind mage,” Vi spat, making the term sound like a curse.

  “A shadow mage,” Master Envermet corrected her, his voice mild, and both teens looked at him.

  Marsh obliged their curiosity by drawing a blade and a buckler from the edges of the room. Around her, the other mages did the same. The girl’s eyes widened. She leaned over to her brother.