Reichis shook his paw repeatedly until it flew off and bounced across the floor. ‘Tell the Argosi she can have it. Feels way less comfortable than it looks.’
She gave him a scathing look. He hissed at her. They went back and forth wordlessly while I considered the matter of Dexan Videris. The man had saved my life and invited me to become his partner, but Ferius was right: if someone had been going around infecting people with the shadowblack, wouldn’t the first person we should suspect be the guy claiming he could cure it? Only … ‘It doesn’t make sense. If Dexan’s been doing this for years, why would he suddenly become so sloppy? Why target Seneira’s family and then say he can’t cure Tyne?’
‘The paths of thieves and deceivers twist and turn in unusual ways,’ Rosie said, pocketing the silver ring she’d retrieved from the floor.
‘There’s something else too,’ I said. ‘Mamma Whispers said the threads pulling at whatever’s been happening here go all the way back to the Jan’Tep lands. Dexan’s been on the run from our people for years.’
Ferius rubbed at her eyes. I wondered if she’d been sleeping much lately. ‘So that brings us back to Revian’s family, with their Jan’Tep house mages and this mansion you say is warded against spells.’
‘Your thoughts go in circles, sister,’ Rosie said. ‘We must investigate further into these older incidents of the shadowblack and determine if –’
The front door burst open and Beren came inside looking exhausted and terrified. ‘Where’s Seneira? Is she back yet?’
Rosie went to him. ‘Breathe deeply, brother, and calm yourself. Tell us what’s happened.’
‘It’s Tyne. He’s got sicker and he keeps asking for Senny.’
I only realised then I hadn’t seen her since last night. ‘Where is she?’
Beren looked at me. ‘So she hasn’t come back? She promised me she’d—’
‘Back from where?’ I asked.
‘Revian’s family sent a carriage this morning and a messenger saying he was terribly sick, that he was begging to see Seneira. They said they could get her there without anyone seeing, and we didn’t know Tyne was doing worse …’ He turned and started for the door. ‘I have to go get her! She needs to be with her brother, not –’
Rosie grabbed his arms, squeezing so tightly I was worried she might actually hurt him. ‘Go be with your boy.’ She looked back to Ferius and me. ‘We will retrieve your daughter.’
37
The Unexpected Mage
The four of us made our way in the darkness to the home of Revian’s parents. Rosie took the lead, and Ferius, Reichis and I followed. Soon enough we’d snuck over the tall iron fence and were inside the grounds. The house was massive, larger and more grandiose than Seneira’s family home. I wondered if Revian was ever lonely here, with so many empty rooms all around him.
‘There,’ Rosie said, pointing to one of the exterior walls.
I followed the line of her finger and saw the first of what proved to be a great many silver warding glyphs. When they’d built this place, they’d made damn sure nothing magical could get to them inside.
‘What’s the plan?’ I asked.
Rosie turned to me. ‘We will be very quiet, and very careful. Do nothing that could draw attention to—’
A sudden scream from inside the house made me turn. Blue and red light gleamed through the windows, almost blinding us before disappearing, followed by another scream, a man’s voice this time. Someone was being hurt very badly.
‘Okay,’ Ferius said, ‘new plan.’ She took off at a run towards the front door.
The screams continued, sounding increasingly tormented as we got closer. Ferius kicked the door near the lock, but it held. Rosie pushed her aside. ‘You never were very conscientious in your study of the physical arts, sister.’ The kick she delivered would have broken bone, but it still didn’t open the door. ‘A few more strikes should suffice,’ she insisted.
It was Ferius’s turn to push her out of the way. She gestured to me. ‘Kid, do your thing.’
I pulled powder from the pouches at my belt, tossed it in the air and made the somatic shapes with my hands as I said, ‘Carath.’ The blast took out the door and half the frame. Sometimes I get a little excited.
We ran inside, into a large open foyer. What we saw there made my stomach go cold.
Revian was in the centre of the room, his arms outstretched, floating two feet in the air. Ler’danet and the other house mage were lying in heaps, the skin burned from their faces, their hands even in death forming the somatic shapes for shielding spells. Nearby, a man and a woman – I assumed they were Revian’s mother and father – lay on the ground in pools of blood, their own flesh torn from them. Around Revian’s right eye, the winding lines of the shadowblack seemed to burn and glow like a star that shed only darkness. Seneira was standing in front of him, her expression flat, almost numb, waiting for her own death.
‘Kellen?’ Revian said, seeing me. He seemed to be in a daze.
I pulled powder again, not inclined to let him do to me what he’d done to the others and what he seemed intent on doing to Seneira. ‘Let go of whatever magic you’re drawing to you, Revian. I won’t warn you a second time.’
He stared back at me, his expression almost pleading. ‘How is this happening, Kellen? I’m not a mage. I don’t know any spells.’
I could almost feel the force of ember magic radiating from him, building in a crescendo, ready to be cast in a spell that surely couldn’t be good for any of us. Then I realised something: Revian’s hands weren’t forming any somatic shapes. He wasn’t speaking any of the incantations. His eyes were so wild there was no way he was holding the necessary envisioning for a spell.
‘Kellen, he’s talking to me.’
‘Who’s talking to you, Revian?’
‘I don’t know … He’s … He wants to say something …’ Revian’s mouth contorted in a twisted surge of agony. The voice that spoke next was his, but the words, the diction, were completely different. ‘Watch carefully, little spellslinger, watch what we do to this girl, and know that we can do the same to you, should you continue to interfere in our affairs.’
‘What’s he talking about?’ Reichis asked, his claws digging into my shoulder.
‘I don’t …’ I glanced over and saw his fur was rising up of its own accord, the air was filled with static like the instant after you hear the thunder, just before … ‘Oh hell,’ I said, turning to Ferius and Rosie. ‘Get Seneira out of here, now!’
Revian caught my eye and I could see tears streaming down his cheeks. ‘They’re going to make me do it, Kellen. Please … make them stop!’
‘You’ve got to hold them back, Revian. Don’t be their slave.’
‘They’re too strong, Kellen! Tell me what to do!’
‘Fight them! Think of someone you care about …’ Like an idiot, I hesitated. ‘Think of Seneira. Think of how much you love each other. You can be strong for her, Revian, I know you can.’
He looked down at her and I could see the agony in his face even as the black marks around his eye swirled angrily, faster and faster. ‘I’m trying, Kellen. I’m trying so hard.’
‘You can hold them back, Revian. I promise you can! Just keep—’
Three things happened then, seemingly all at once. The first was that Rosie ran past me and scooped up Seneira in her arms, leaping towards one of the tall windows and turning in mid-air so that her back struck the glass, shattering it as the two of them went through. Something grabbed at me, hauling me back to the front door even as I took hold of Reichis before he could fall off my shoulder. Revian watched me go, his face a mask of terrible sorrow as he fought the forces that sought to control him. I could see on his face that his will was breaking. The strain of resisting the magic burning inside him must have been unimaginable, and he’d held it back so courageously it made me wish I’d known him longer, that in these last seconds I could have been a better friend to him. He looked so … ashamed. When he caught my eye, he sai
d, ‘Tell her I –’
There was just time to see the first blush of multicoloured fire manifesting from Revian’s hands, his mouth and his eyes, as the flames began to reach out for all of us. Then the air went out of me and I realised Ferius had thrown me to the ground outside the house. I was still holding on to Reichis, and for an instant the two of us were staring up at the sky as if we’d come to lie on the grass and talk nonsense like we sometimes did. Then Ferius dropped on top of us, shielding us from the explosion.
The sound was deafening, and for several seconds I couldn’t see or hear anything. Then Ferius rolled off me. I could see she was dazed. Rosie and Seneira came around to us, the Argosi covered in cuts and lacerations from the broken glass. Seneira looked unharmed, save for the fact that the man she’d always known she would marry, who would be her partner in life, had somehow been incinerated by ember magic in a house warded against spellcraft.
I got up from the grass and looked at the remains of Revian’s home. There wasn’t much of it left.
38
The Question
For the next few minutes we did the things you do in these situations. Ferius shook off the effects of the explosion faster than the rest of us and, after she had checked Seneira and me over, went to tend to Rosie’s wounds. We were all in shock, I think, even Reichis, whose eyes glanced around slower than usual, as if he was having trouble focusing. He wasn’t saying anything.
I waited until the smoke had cleared and then went inside. Soon there would be people coming to see what had happened, which meant we didn’t have much time. Even through the dull haze and the throbbing in my head, there was something I had to see for myself; the house had been warded against magic, and yet I recognised the spell Revian had cast.
‘What are you looking for?’ Seneira asked. She looked confused, as if she’d only just remembered how to speak.
I walked over to the centre of the room, now covered in rubble, where Revian had been floating just minutes before. ‘Stay back, Seneira.’
‘Surely the body will be destroyed from the blast,’ Rosie said, glancing around at the charred interior. It was as if a dozen bolts of lightning had all struck at once.
‘Not necessarily.’
She, Ferius and I pushed slabs of broken sandstone and pieces of shattered furniture out of the way. Eventually we found Revian. He was dead of course, but not from lightning.
‘How is this possible?’ Seneira asked. She wasn’t crying or shouting. It was as if she’d forgotten how to feel.
‘An ember spell protects the caster from its effects.’
‘But the boy is dead,’ Rosie said.
‘Well, drop a ton of debris on a person and they die regardless of what spell they’re casting.’
‘What’s this?’ Ferius asked.
I knelt down to examine what she’d found, but the first thing I noticed was Revian’s face. His eyes were still wide open, as if he was pondering something inexplicable. So was I: the markings around his eye were completely gone. On the ground next to his head was a tiny pile of ash. It wasn’t like the charred debris around us; this was made of distinct particles like grains of black sand. ‘Ancestors … I should have known.’
‘What is it?’ Ferius asked.
I pointed to the markings around my eye. ‘This – what you see – it’s part of me. It’s in my skin. Nothing could remove it.’
‘But that fella, Dexan –’ Ferius began.
I shook my head. ‘He had scars. Look at Revian’s face. The skin is perfectly smooth.’
‘So then …’
I reached out a hand to close Revian’s eyes. I’d barely known him, and yet, in that last moment before he died, he’d looked at me as if I was a friend come to save him, who might be able to tell him what had happened to him. Unfortunately I’d figured it out too late – the reason why none of this made sense, why people who weren’t Jan’Tep were suddenly getting a disease that only affected mages.
‘It’s not the shadowblack,’ I said, looking up at Seneira.
‘Then what is it?’
‘I don’t know, but whatever it is, it doesn’t just torment the victims. It’s allowing someone to use them as anchors, to cast spells in places protected by magical wards.’ I turned to Ferius. ‘Someone used Revian to murder his parents. And whoever did it? I know one more thing about them: they’re Jan’Tep mages.’
When I was a kid, I used to wonder why my people didn’t rule the world. I mean, the Jan’Tep are by far the most powerful mages on the continent. Whatever paltry spiritual forces the Berabesq viziers believe their many-headed god provides them, whatever mystical artefacts the Daroman generals scrounge up to supplement their military forces, none of those things could hold a candle to the power of a true master mage.
Sometimes I’d ask my mother and father, but they’d just make some remark about how I should probably spend my time learning to become a mage and then I wouldn’t need to ask them the question. Shalla – whom I hadn’t asked but who’d eavesdropped on the conversation – told me it was because our people were merciful. ‘And besides,’ she’d added cynically, ‘what would be the point of being the greatest nation in the world if there were no others to compare ourselves to?’
It was Osia’phest, my old spellmaster, who’d given me the closest thing to an answer. ‘Our magic is powerful, yes,’ he’d said, shuffling about among the shelves of books in his dusty sanctum, ‘but our flesh is no different than that of other men. What does it matter that a war mage’s lightning is more powerful than a sword or a crossbow if his blood already spills from the wound left by the enemy’s blade or bolt? Further, magic, like all of nature, follows rules. As a shield can protect its wielder from an arrow, so too can a warded house protect its owner from spells.’
That, I’d come to understand, was why my people didn’t simply assassinate our rivals’ leaders and take over their countries. The other nations had found ways to protect their palaces from our spells.
Only, what if you could get past their wards?
What if the mage could send an anchor into a warded building and channel the magic through them? Since the actual spell was originating from far away, the magic would simply appear through the victim, and the wards would be ineffectual.
‘Something about this is not right,’ Rosie said, mounting her horse.
No kidding.
‘You got an itch?’ Ferius asked.
Rosie nodded. ‘Those previous victims I was looking into – one family lives in a town not far from here.’
‘All right,’ Ferius said. ‘Kellen, best you and I take Seneira to the Academy hospital. Her father needs to know what happened here.’ I noticed she was careful not to mention Tyne’s worsening condition.
I knelt down to check on Reichis. ‘You all right, partner?’ I asked.
He stared at me blankly, and I worried that something had happened to break the connection we shared, but after a few seconds he shook himself off. ‘I really need to kill whoever did this.’
‘I need you to do something for me first.’
‘What?’
‘Go with Ferius and Seneira. Keep an eye on them for me, okay?’
He gave a quiet growl that was his way of agreeing while letting me know he wasn’t happy about it.
‘Where are you going, kid?’ Ferius asked.
I looked out past the open door towards the desert in the distance. ‘There’s someone I need to speak to.’
I sat cross-legged on the ground, staring at my patch of sand. Teleidos is fairly heavily developed, full of large buildings and sidewalks and even small, elegantly designed public gardens. So I’d had to walk almost to the edge of town before I found undisturbed sand where there weren’t people all around so that I could attempt the invocation.
The big problem, of course, was that whatever spell Shalla had cast to communicate with me was far too complicated for someone of my limited abilities to attempt. Also, since I’d never sparked the tattooed metallic ban
d for sand magic – and never would, thanks to the counter-glyphs my father had permanently etched into the skin of my forearm – there were parts of the spell that would always be denied me. My only option was to try something simpler and hope I got lucky.
For once in my life.
From what I understood of Shalla’s explanation, the spell she’d used had many components to it – bits and pieces of different forms of magic to handle individual tasks, working together almost like a clock or some other contraption. If that were true, then the spell might still be active, like a warrant, just waiting to be reawakened. Since Shalla had mentioned breath magic as a key requirement, and since that was the only kind of Jan’Tep magic I could do, that’s where I had to start.
‘Tuvan-eh-savan-teh-beranth,’ I intoned, hoping I remembered the incantation correctly. Nothing happened, but that could be due to any number of factors. A Jan’Tep spell requires five components: the words, perfectly spoken; the envisioning, held in the mind with total clarity; the somatic shapes made with the hands; the anchoring, for which I was using the sand and the breeze; and, finally, dominion: the will of the mage. I was always weakest at that last part.
‘Tuvan-eh-savan-teh-beranth,’ I repeated, making extra sure I was holding the somatic shape correctly. When it again didn’t work, I tried going through each component of the spell yet again, searching for my mistake. Of course, there might not be any mistake. I might just not be strong enough.
My anxiety broke my concentration, which meant my envisioning of the spell fell apart. I became frustrated, knowing full well that Shalla could have done this in her sleep. I could just imagine her, standing there, staring at me with that perpetually amused yet disappointed expression on her face, her oh-so-flawless features and bright golden hair so different from the dark mop that adorned my head. Most of all, it was her voice that always irritated me: more mature than any thirteen-year-old’s voice had a right to me, the diction so perfect, each syllable like a note of music. I didn’t know why I was even bothering to try to contact Shalla – it was like she was already here anyway.
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