Shadowblack

by Sebastien de Castell

  Great. A silk mage. Because I haven’t had enough trouble with those lately.

  The shorter one caught Revian before he landed and invoked the third foundational form of breath magic. ‘Fessandi,’ he said, and Revian began to float on his back as though propped up by the air itself.

  ‘Take the boy home,’ Ler’danet commanded.

  The other house mage walked away with Revian floating along beside him, and soon it was just the two of us standing there.

  ‘Revian is going to be pretty pissed off when he wakes up,’ I noted. ‘Especially if he finds out you killed his friend.’

  Ler’danet smiled in that way people do when they find the very sight of you distasteful. ‘Bad enough I am forced to work for the boy’s Daroman parents. I do not take commands from him.’

  I started to reach for my powders, but for some reason my hands kept missing the pouches. Then I saw the smirk on Ler’danet’s face. Damned silk magic.

  Usually in a situation like this I wait for Ferius to say something clever that has a slim chance of getting us out of trouble. Unfortunately she wasn’t here and nothing particularly brilliant was coming to my mind.

  ‘First rule of house mages and house pets,’ a voice said, emerging from the shadows of the alleyway behind us.

  Just how many people are going to sneak up on me today?

  I turned to see Dexan Videris grinning at us both. ‘If you’re going to let them out of the house, keep them on a short leash.’

  ‘Exile,’ Ler’danet said, the word dripping with disgust. I guess he wasn’t fond of Jan’Tep outcasts in general. ‘Shouldn’t you be running away now? That is your way, isn’t it?’

  ‘Most days, sure, but Kellen here is a spellslinger like me, and, well, the fifth rule of spellslinging is …’

  Please let it be ‘Always help a fellow spellslinger in need.’

  ‘There’s always profit to be found in having a fellow spellslinger owe you a favour.’

  Okay, that’ll work.

  Suddenly Dexan clapped his palms together and a flash of blue-white light lit the alley. Ler’danet raised an arm up to protect his eyes even as his other hand formed the somatic shape for a new spell. ‘Shupal derveis,’ he shouted, and all of a sudden both Dexan and I were sent flying backwards. I hit my back against an unlit lamp post and struggled to get to my feet.

  Dexan recovered faster than I did. ‘Aw, come on now, Ler’danet. Don’t insult me with that old cantrip.’ He reached up and pulled something from the band around his frontier hat and tossed it up high. It gave off a small, almost insignificant explosion, but then yellow dust started falling all around us. ‘Best hold your breath, kid.’

  I tried, but as soon as the dust touched my skin I started feeling off somehow – dizzy, almost sleepy. I couldn’t quite find my balance and yet didn’t seem to mind much at all. Ler’danet was stumbling around, struggling to stay on his feet.

  ‘First thing I learned to love about the territories,’ Dexan said, walking towards Ler’danet. ‘They got all kinds of ways of having a good time. Now our people, of course, well, we don’t usually have much use for liquor or other such amusements. That’s why we can’t cast spells worth a damn when we’re drunk.’ He held up his right hand, bright sparks of ember magic swirling around his fingers. ‘’Less you practise getting drunk a whole lot, that is.’ He extended his arm and thin crackles of lightning whipped through the air, digging into Ler’danet like dozens of tiny needles.

  For a second it looked as if the house mage was going to fall, but then he reached inside his cloak and a thin three-foot length of chain whipped out. At first I thought it must have a shielding charm on it, but the blue sparks of Dexan’s spell didn’t dissipate – instead they began to shimmer and dance around the length of the chain.

  ‘Darn it,’ Dexan said, backing away, dragging me with him by the collar. ‘Now where did you get yourself a siphon chain, Ler’danet?’

  The other mage burped awkwardly, but nonetheless began to stalk towards us, whipping the chain back and forth, sending sparks flying from it. ‘Unlike you, exile, I despise this place. It’s filthy, backwards and full of vermin.’ He grinned. ‘But at least no one minds when you kill a few rats.’

  My head was starting to clear, but not nearly enough to be able to cast a spell. Dexan’s smirk had disappeared and he was concentrating now on staying out of the way of the chain before it killed him with his own spell. Ler’danet whipped the chain with more and more force as he recovered from the yellow dust. I thought about jumping at him, but I’d only get killed faster that way. Instead I surreptitiously reached into my pocket and extracted some of Ferius’s steel throwing cards. I figured I’d only have one chance at this, because the instant Ler’danet saw them he’d use the chain on me and I’d be dead. So I watched as the chain swung back and forth, back and forth, trying to get a feel for the timing.

  ‘Kid?’ Dexan said. ‘Don’t suppose you—’

  Now! I threw one of the cards, more by instinct than aim. It sailed towards Ler’danet, the steel surface shimmering blue as it flew under the sparking chain. The house mage screamed in pain as the card bit into his cheek. He dropped the chain and instantly the lightning spell faded from it. Ler’danet reached back into his cloak, but by then I was already running at him.

  ‘Go low, kid!’ Dexan shouted.

  I dived for the house mage’s legs, wrapping my arms around them and making him stumble. Just as he was falling, I looked up and saw Dexan leap over me, slamming Ler’danet to the ground and knocking the wind out of him. The house mage’s throat rattled as he tried to suck air into his lungs. Dexan dropped something small and light, like a tiny green leaf, into the mage’s mouth. Ler’danet’s eyes went wide. He began frantically clawing at the inside of his mouth even as he struggled for breath.

  ‘He’s choking!’ I said, mindful of the – to my way of thinking entirely unfair – Argosi admonition against killing defeated enemies. I crawled over to him and tried to help, but the mage pushed me away.

  ‘Well, normally I’d say that’s just tough,’ Dexan said, rising to his feet and dusting himself off, ‘but old Ler’danet’s going to be fine. He’s just upset because by now he’s figured out that I made him swallow addleweed.’

  The mage took in a long, wheezing gasp, then his breathing began to settle. He looked up, his eyes not seeming to recognise me, looking very confused by the world around him.

  ‘Yeah,’ Dexan said, standing over him. ‘Ler’danet here won’t be casting any spells for the next few weeks. Or doing much arithmetic.’

  We dragged Ler’danet away from the middle of the alley and left him under the awning of what looked like an abandoned shop. Dexan figured his partner would come looking for him soon enough and get him back to Revian’s parents’ home, where he’d receive medical care – likely followed by getting fired.

  ‘Teleidos is a civilised place,’ Dexan explained. ‘Folks don’t like it much when house mages go around trying to kill people.’

  ‘Tell that to Ler’danet,’ I said, rubbing at the spot on my back where I’d struck the lamp post.

  Dexan clapped a hand on my shoulder. ‘Just be thankful I was looking for you, kid. Guys like you and me are none too popular with the Jan’Tep these days.’

  ‘How did you know where I’d be?’ I asked.

  He chuckled. ‘I told you, Kellen, you’re not hard to find.’

  There were any number of Jan’Tep tracking spells, so I was curious to know which one he’d used.

  ‘Second rule of being a spellslinger …’ he began.

  ‘Let me guess: “Don’t share your secrets.” I get it. Have you found a way to help Seneira and her brother?’

  He stopped walking. ‘Sorry, kid. Until we find the mage that cursed them and put an end to him, there’s nothing I can do.’ He must’ve seen from my expression what my next question was going to be. ‘Forget it. I told you before – first rule of being a spellslinger is never mess in another spellsli
nger’s business. Once whoever started this rash of shadowblack cursing is dead, I’ll help cure the girl and her brother, but until then, I’m staying out of it.’

  I told Dexan about the whisper witch Revian had mentioned. Even before I was done he was shaking his head. ‘Stay away from Mamma Whispers, kid. You don’t mess with her unless you’re ready to kill her. Are you ready to do that, Kellen? Murder someone in cold blood?’

  I didn’t have an answer to that.

  Dexan noticed my hesitation. ‘Want some free advice?’

  ‘Sure, I guess.’

  He pointed up the road towards Seneira’s house. ‘Those folks you’re trying to help? They’re nice people, but they’re not your people. When this whole mess is done and over with? Well –’ he tapped a finger on my left cheek just below the paste covering up the black marks that wound around my eye – ‘they won’t want some exiled Jan’Tep with the shadowblack hanging around.’

  Somehow that thought – the idea of everyone else being cured, but me still being stuck with this curse, with the pain, with the visions – was too much. That thing that always happens a few minutes after nearly dying? The incredible cold, the uncontrollable shaking? The worst part is that it’s sometimes accompanied by pathetic crying.

  ‘Hey, kid,’ Dexan said, putting a hand on my shoulder. ‘It’s rough, I know.’ He took away his hand and added, ‘But it’s not all bad news.’

  A sudden spark of hope lit up inside me. ‘You’ve found a cure? For my shadowblack?’

  ‘I can’t make it go away permanently, not when your grandmother banded you in shadow. But I think I’ve found a set of spells – three of them – that, if I do them right, will make it harder for hextrackers to use the spell warrant to track you. More importantly, I’m pretty sure the technique will also reduce the frequency of your shadowblack attacks and stop the visions from being quite so bad.’

  ‘How does it –’ Dexan’s grin stopped me. ‘Oh, right. Never share your secrets. So what’s the price?’

  His expression changed, becoming more serious. ‘The thing is, it’s not a one-off spell. I’d have to cast it repeatedly, probably every week or so.’

  ‘But then—’

  ‘That’s the price. You’d need to stick with me. We’d be partners.’

  ‘You’d want me as a partner?’

  ‘Why not? You and me did pretty good together back there against old Ler’danet, didn’t we? Besides –’ he leaned back against the fence of a small house and stuck his thumbs in his belt – ‘being a spellslinger is a dangerous business. I’ve spent a lot of years on the run. Having someone to watch my back … well, that wouldn’t be so bad.’ He gave me a thoughtful look. ‘I could teach you a lot, you know. I left our people when I was about your age, and I’ve spent the last fifteen years learning things. Things that could help you survive in that big bad world out there.’

  He started telling me about some of his adventures travelling the continent. For all the danger, he made it sound … exciting. A spellslinger was a valuable commodity to a lot of people. Traders carrying expensive cargo, families looking for someone to track down a loved one, even governments sometimes wanted the services of a mage who wasn’t beholden to the Jan’Tep arcanocracy.

  ‘You’d have to say goodbye to your Argosi friend,’ he warned. ‘I don’t plan on travelling down her road.’

  I was surprised by the sudden sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. It’s not as if Ferius and I had been getting along, and she showed no signs of wanting to teach me how to fight or keep myself alive out there. Learning to ‘smile’ had been kind of fun, but smiling wasn’t going to help me fend off a bounty hunter.

  ‘Can I think about it?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course, but don’t take too long to decide.’ He glanced around the empty street. ‘This town’s got bad vibrations to it – and I say that as a guy who never sparked his silk band and isn’t superstitious. I figure it’s time to make for someplace that doesn’t feel like it’s going to seven kinds of hell any time soon.’ He extended a hand towards me. Not knowing what else to do, I shook it. He had a firm grip that made me wince. ‘I’ll give you a day to sort yourself out, kid, but after that I’m out of here.’

  I nodded, rubbing at my hand that now ached. Maybe Reichis is right and I need to put on some muscle. ‘When I decide, how should I—’

  Dexan laughed again as he walked off into the night. ‘I keep telling you, kid: I’ll find you.’

  30

  The Betrothed

  It was fully dark by the time I got back to Seneira’s house, and she was there by herself. Rosie and Ferius were off doing their own investigating, and apparently Beren had been summoned to the home of Revian’s parents. It seemed they were no longer quite so keen on their precious son marrying the girl who they now suspected had given him the shadowblack.

  ‘Do you love him?’ I asked, as we stepped outside to the garden.

  All through our conversation and my informing her of Revian’s condition, I’d tried to come up with ways of asking how she felt that wouldn’t make me sound like a jealous idiot. This was not one of the variations I’d practised in my head.

  ‘Do you love him?’ What a moron!

  Seneira had been stuck here since we arrived in Teleidos, suffering from a condition she didn’t understand, unable to return to her normal life or even see her sick brother again. The last thing she needed was a bunch of stupid questions about the person she was supposed to marry – assuming the shadowblack didn’t take her first.

  Reichis sauntered over to inspect a flower bed he was considering as a possible toilet. ‘“Do you love him?”’ he repeated, doing the best impression one can expect from a squirrel cat of a hopeless, lovesick youth. ‘When did you become part rabbit?’

  Seneira was staring at me, eyes narrowed; I half expected her to slap me. Instead she said, ‘I’m sorry, Kellen, I should have told you Revian and I were betrothed. Our families … The agreement was made when we were children.’

  In fact there was no reason in the world why she should have mentioned her marital plans to me. I’d only known her a few days and, really, other than the shadowblack, what did we have in common?

  ‘It’s not …’ She hesitated. ‘Revian and I, it’s not like …’

  ‘Not like what?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, that’s between Revian and me. I shouldn’t have said anything.’

  Reichis lifted up his head, looking as though he’d caught a scent in the air, then wandered over to Seneira and sniffed at her. ‘Kiss her,’ he said finally.

  ‘What?’

  He looked up at me through beady squirrel-cat eyes. ‘She wants you to kiss her.’

  ‘I doubt it. She’s …’ I stopped myself, mostly on account of the fact that Seneira was watching me.

  ‘Kellen?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Please tell me you and your squirrel cat aren’t talking about me.’

  ‘Just kiss her already,’ Reichis said, sitting back on his haunches as if Seneira wasn’t even there. ‘Trust me: she likes you. Obviously if she’s supposed to mate with this other idiot then she can’t tell you that, so she’s waiting for you to kiss her.’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ I said.

  Seneira looked confused, thinking I’d spoken to her. ‘Of course I don’t know what it is you imagine the animal is saying to you.’

  Reichis tapped his snout. ‘I call it like I smell it.’

  One of the skills I was going to have to learn one day (in addition to escaping chokeholds, taking a punch and not asking girls I had no business falling for whether or not they loved their betrothed) was how to simultaneously have a conversation with Reichis and whoever else was around who didn’t happen to speak squirrel cat.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said to Seneira. ‘I never should have brought it up.’

  If I’d been hoping that Revian’s affections for Seneira might be unrequited – or that taking romantic ad
vice from a squirrel cat made any sense at all – I was disabused of that notion by the look of concern on Seneira’s face. ‘The shadowblack … it must be awful for him. I thought that by running I could protect the people I loved, but all I did was bring even more suffering into their lives.’ She reached up a hand to the black markings around her eye, wincing as she touched them. ‘I wish … I wish you’d met me before all this happened, Kellen.’

  I felt like this was one of those pauses in the music that Ferius talks about, so I asked, ‘What were you like?’

  A trace of defiance broke through the sadness and self-doubt. ‘I was a fighter. I never sat around crying or waiting for other people to save me.’

  ‘Maybe you’re still a fighter,’ I said. ‘Maybe you’re just waiting for the right moment.’

  ‘When will that be, Kellen? And who am I supposed to fight?’

  There was such desperate need in her voice, in the way she looked up at me, as if somehow I could give her the answers, but I couldn’t. I had no idea what was happening to the people of this town, and right now the only thought that kept going through my head was Dexan’s offer: They’re nice people, but they’re not your people.

  I don’t know if Seneira was just tired of standing there waiting for me to say or do something, or if maybe she could sense what I was thinking, because a moment later she gave me a sad smile, said goodnight and left me in the garden.

  Reichis started to follow her inside, then stopped just long enough to turn back around and say, ‘Should’ve kissed her like I told you. Moron.’

  31

  The Warning

  I turned in for the night, stopping by the bathroom just long enough to wash my face. I felt oddly nauseous for some reason, and found myself staring at the drops of water that remained in the basin as they slowly slid down the sides. The droplets came together in places, forming shapes and then coming apart again. The sight was strangely compelling, and as more of the droplets coalesced in the basin, I found I couldn’t turn my head away. That’s when I realised what was going on.