‘Because you’d never have let me do this my way.’
‘Damn straight, because I’d have known you’d end up in a position like this.’
I nodded. ‘Just like I knew you’d come find me.’
50
Ending the Worms
It didn’t take us long to find some copper binding wire to use on Dexan. I made sure to wind it around his fingers just as he’d previously done to me, so that there was no way for him to form any somatic shapes.
‘You’ll never find those bracelets, kid, not if you search this place for a hundred years. So you’d better start treating me nice or negotiations could take a long, long time.’
His smug self-confidence made me want to hit him very badly, but though I tried to whisper to the spirit that now lived in my right eye, the sasutzei remained silent. ‘What will it take?’ I asked Dexan.
‘Wait,’ Reichis said, and clambered up to my shoulder. ‘Let me try something.’
‘What?’
‘Just listen and do exactly what I tell you.’
He explained his plan, and though I didn’t understand how it was going to help us, I had no better ideas so I followed his instructions. I knelt down, grabbed Dexan by the collar and gave him my best version of a smirk. ‘You’re a sucker, you know that, Dexan? Did you really think we’d risk our lives coming here if we didn’t already know exactly where you’d hidden the bracelets? We took them before you got here. Frankly I’m surprised you hid something so valuable in such an obvious place.’
His eyes showed a glimmer of concern, but then he just laughed. ‘Hate to tell you, kid, but you’re terrible at bluffing.’
‘He’s right,’ Reichis chittered. ‘You are pretty bad at it.’ He leaped off my shoulder and ran along one of the carpets up to the back wall. ‘On the other hand, that moron’s poker face is just as lousy as yours.’
‘What’s going on?’ Seneira asked.
‘Squirrel-cat magic,’ Reichis said, and had me translate the rest while he scampered up a set of shelves and began probing with his claws along the rough-hewn stone wall behind them.
‘When I told Dexan we already knew where he’d hidden the bracelets, his eyes went to their hiding place.’
‘I was watching him and I didn’t see his eyes move at all,’ she said.
Neither had I, other than the briefest flicker, but apparently Reichis was better at this sort of thing than we were. ‘Over here,’ he said excitedly. Ferius carried on tying Dexan up while Seneira and I joined Reichis at the back wall. There, up in the left-hand corner, was an outcropping of stone no different than any other part of the wall so far as I could see, but when I placed my hand there, the rock was as soft as silk cloth. The covering gave way, allowing me to reach past it and take hold of a wooden box about the size of an old book. As I removed my hand, the cloth went back into place, seamlessly becoming part of the wall again. Inside the box were at least two dozen onyx bracelets, each with its own slithering form inside: the other halves of the obsidian worms magically bound to those inserted around the eyes of Dexan’s targets. Every bracelet had the victim’s name inscribed along one edge.
I started rummaging through them, and before long I found the one with Ferius’s name. ‘Here,’ I said, handing the bracelet to her as Seneira took the box from me and began searching for her own.
Usually Ferius is hard to read. She wears a look of cool self-satisfaction on her face whether she’s angry, happy, sad or scared. But it was rage I saw there now – rage like I’d never seen on anyone before. That’s when I finally understood the most important thing there is to know about Ferius Parfax: there is nothing in this world or the next that matters to her more than being free. That is the path of the wild daisy.
Wordlessly she took the bracelet and threw it to the floor. With the heel of her boot she smashed it, grinding it into fragments even as she screamed from the pain. I could see the worm beneath the skin around her eye squirming, shuddering, shattering into thousands of tiny black particles, like grains of sand. Finally Ferius stopped, and what was left of the worm came oozing out of her eye like blood from a wound. She wiped at it furiously, determined to remove every last trace. When she was done, her gaze turned to Dexan. I think, despite her Argosi vows, she might have murdered him right then were it not for Seneira’s sudden cry.
‘I can’t find it! I can’t … Where is mine?’
She was still rifling through the box, desperately trying to find the bracelet with her name on it.
‘Sorry, little girl,’ Dexan said. He almost sounded sincere. ‘They sent for it three days ago – a falcon, if you can believe it. My instructions were to tie the bracelet around its leg, and as soon as I did, it flew off back to its master.’
‘Why? Why me?’
‘They like you, girl. Big powerful diplomat’s daughter, one day a diplomat yourself. They picked you and a few others to be … special cases. Reckon you’re going to be real useful to them.’
She looked at me, terrified, desperate for someone to tell her we could fix this. I went back to where Dexan sat on the floor. ‘There has to be another way. You said it before, you were practically bragging that you had rituals to destroy the worms. “Rituals” plural, not just one.’
‘Guess you must’ve misheard me, kid. Without the bracelet, there’s nothing you can do.’
Nothing you can do? Why say it that way? Why not ‘nothing I can do’?
Reichis came over, sniffing at Dexan. ‘He’s lying.’ Another sniff, then a growl. ‘He’s holding something back.’
I didn’t know how he could tell, but since it was the only hope we had, I knelt down to face Dexan again. ‘The squirrel cat thinks you’re holding out on us.’
‘Well, guess you shouldn’t rely on a dumb animal to think for you.’
Reichis snarled and puffed himself up. ‘Give me five minutes alone with him, Kellen.’
I gave Dexan the most menacing look I could muster, which probably wasn’t much. ‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe all Reichis is picking up is the stink that sticks to a man who’d turn people’s children into spies and slaves.’ I got back up to my feet. ‘So I apologise in advance if it turns out he was wrong.’ I looked down at Reichis, who was already grinning that terrifying feral grin of his. ‘You’re always talking about eating eyeballs. Here’s your chance.’
The squirrel cat crept up to Dexan as if he were a mouse about to be pounced on, then starting crawling up his leg, growling all the while. The spellslinger tried to shake him off, but the squirrel cat dug his claws in and kept going. Ferius locked eyes with me. The shock from before had worn off now and I could see she was telling me she wouldn’t allow us to torture Dexan. Fortunately, even without clawing out someone’s eyes, Reichis can put on quite a show when he puts his mind to it. He’d barely licked the guy’s eyelids before Dexan started screaming for mercy. ‘All right, all right! I’ll tell you! Just get him off me!’
‘Best give him a chance to speak, Reichis.’
The squirrel cat looked up at me. ‘He doesn’t need both eyeballs to tell us how it’s done, does he?’
Dexan was babbling now. ‘There is something, another way to get rid of the worm, but it’s dangerous. And I want a deal first.’
‘What kind of deal?’ Ferius asked.
‘You let me go. You let me leave here and you let me take three of my bracelets as insurance. It’s a tough world out there and I might need a favour from someone powerful one day.’
Ferius put a boot against his chest. ‘Boy, you ain’t gonna set your will on another child ever again. You cure the girl, and we’ll let you go on with your miserable life for so long as the earth can tolerate your footsteps upon it. That’s the best offer you’re gonna get.’
The first hint of a sneer started to find its way to Dexan’s face, but then he saw the way Ferius was looking at him. There’s this thing she can do – I don’t know what it is because it isn’t magic and it sure isn’t normal – but I’ve yet to see an
ybody who could match that stare. ‘Fine,’ he said, and looked up at me. ‘Just keep the crazy woman and that damned squirrel cat away from me.’ His eyes went to Seneira. ‘It’s gonna hurt.’
‘I don’t care,’ she said, almost shaking with anger and fear. ‘I just want this thing out of me.’
‘You know how Jan’Tep counter-banding works?’ Dexan asked me.
The question took me by surprise. Just the thought of what my parents had done to me still made me sick to my stomach. I nodded.
‘Well, it’s kind of like that. It’s tricky work and needs a breath spell to channel the flow of the inks to keep the patient from dying along the way.’ He nodded at his bonds. ‘So you’d better get these off me before my hands start to cramp up.’
I’d been about to start untying the knots when Seneira said, ‘No.’ We all turned to look at her. ‘You say it takes spells? Then I want Kellen to do it.’ She reached out and touched the tattooed band around my forearm. ‘You can do breath magic, right?’
It was the only magic I could do, but this was different. ‘Seneira, I’ve never done the procedure he’s talking about. Working with banding inks is dangerous. I could end up blinding you, or worse!’
‘I don’t care. I won’t have that man lay hands on me, not if there’s any other choice in the world.’ She took my hand in hers. ‘Please, Kellen. I trust you not to hurt me.’
Great. Now if only I trusted myself.
51
The Procedure
Seneira and I sat facing each other in the wreckage of Dexan’s lair. I’d set up a small table between us with the necessary instruments. Two sets of metallic inks bubbled and boiled in tiny glass containers over twin braziers, the flames flickering red and blue. ‘Are you ready?’ I asked.
She nodded. ‘I’m ready.’ Seneira was doing a good job of keeping the quavering out of her voice, but the fear was plain as day in her eyes. This was going to hurt, and she knew it.
I’d made Dexan go over every step of the process three times, making sure he didn’t change any details in each recounting. Ferius kept an eye on him while Reichis, who had wrapped himself around Dexan’s neck, chittered a near-constant stream of threats into his ear. Despite having no idea what he was saying, Ferius pretended to relay every word. Most of her guesses were pretty close to what the squirrel cat was saying. I guess he really is predictable sometimes.
I dipped the first needle into the container of liquefied copper. Dexan hadn’t lied when he’d said the procedure was similar to the counter-banding my parents had done to me, which made my hands alternately want to clench in anger or shake with trepidation. The critical part was the breath spell I’d use to channel the inks as they entered the skin around her eye. Once the needle pierced flesh, I’d have to guide the molten metal into the worm, killing it without burning Seneira’s flesh … or blinding her for life. But it was this, or forever be under the control of whoever had been behind this whole ugly business.
As I raised the first needle up to her eye, Seneira leaned back out of reach. ‘Wait … Kellen, stop.’
I thought she was panicking, now unsure if she could go through with the procedure, but it was something else entirely. ‘Kellen, I can feel them … the mages who have the other part of the worm. They’re trying to talk through me.’
‘Hold them off,’ I said. ‘It won’t be long, I promise.’
‘No. I’m going to let them do it. Maybe something they say will help us figure out who they are.’
I’d seen what it looked like when they insinuated themselves inside her mind before. The sickening pain on her face had been almost too much to endure. ‘They’re not going to reveal themselves, Seneira. This is just some—’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t care. Maybe you’re right and we won’t learn anything, but I want to do it anyway.’
‘Why?’
Seneira reached out and took my hand, making me set the needle back down on the tray. ‘Because I want you to deliver a message to them from me.’
‘Hello, Kellen.’ The voice was Seneira’s, but the diction, the way her mouth moved, belonged to someone or something else entirely.
I said nothing in reply, staring at her face, watching every twitch of the lips, every slight raise of the eyebrow or subtle smirk rising from one corner of her mouth.
‘Come now,’ she said. ‘Don’t play the silent, petulant child. You must have many questions.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Really? I very much doubt that.’
I laughed, partly to disguise my own discomfort at watching Seneira being used in this way. ‘I already know you won’t tell me who you are and I already know what you’ve come to say.’
Seneira’s eyes narrowed to slits. ‘Tell us.’
‘You want to make me an offer.’ I nodded back to where Dexan was tied up. ‘Like the one you made him.’
A smile crept onto Seneira’s face. ‘Oh, better than that. True, we would have permitted Dexan to enter one of the oases, to renew his connection to the raw source of Jan’Tep magic, but for you we would give so much more.’
‘A pardon,’ I said, having fully expected this. ‘The end of the bounty on my head.’
‘A chance to grow up without fear of being hunted, to return to your home. Freedom, instead of captivity. Comfort, instead of fear.’ Seneira leaned forward just a bit. ‘Life, instead of death.’
I considered the words that had been spoken, every one, until finally I said, ‘Thank you.’
The head tilted, ‘Ah, but not so quick. First there is what you must do for us. You will cease your interference in our affairs. You will leave this place without revealing what that little swamp witch’s spirit spell has shown you about who we have taken under our control and you will kill the spellslinger Dexan so that he cannot reveal what he knows.’
That last part was tempting, but … ‘I don’t think so.’
Anger flashed on her features. ‘Do not attempt to negotiate with us, child. You have—’
‘No, you don’t understand. I wasn’t thanking you for the offer before, I was thanking you for the clue you gave me about your identity.’
‘Oh?’
I nodded. ‘I already knew that only mages of the highest order could work the spells needed for what you’ve done here, and only someone of tremendous influence could have corralled so many bounty hunters to help you track down Dexan. Only lords magi have that kind of power and authority. But then you gave me the thing I was missing: you said I could return to my home.’
‘You disbelieve us?’
‘On the contrary, it makes perfect sense. The thing is, no Jan’Tep clan could ever make that offer on behalf of another clan, which also explains why your accent is so close to my own.’ I leaned forward and stared into Seneira’s face, but into the gaze of our enemies. ‘You’re lords magi of my own clan.’
Even before I received a response, I imagined their faces. Ra’meth, if he was still alive, Te’oreth, An’atria, Ven’asp. I hoped Osia’phest wasn’t involved. I’d always liked the old man. I picked up the small shallow case containing the remaining onyx bracelets. Then I picked up a small hammer I’d found among Dexan’s things and smashed the bracelets into pieces.
Seneira’s jaw stiffened and her eyes widened in rage. Her hands started to reach out for my neck, but she was still in there, her will too strong to allow them. ‘We will kill the girl in front of you,’ the voice said, its timbre changing, deepening, the words echoing inside the chamber. ‘We will send ember magic through her to kill you and those with you.’
A glow began to emerge from her eye, red and fiery with traces of an icy blue as though lightning were building up inside a ball of flame. I feared we’d pushed our enemies too far, but then the magic died down, and Seneira, sweat dripping from her brow, said, ‘I. Think. Not.’
She was incredible, resisting their control with only her raw will, denying them access to her as an anchor for their spells. I knew she couldn’t do it forever th
ough, so I relayed her message. ‘Stay out of the Seven Sands, My Lords Magi. It can be a far more dangerous place than you might expect.’
The glow disappeared entirely, and for a moment I thought they’d gone, but then the voice said, ‘There is a special hell for those who betray their own people, Kellen of the House of Ke. You dishonour all those who have loved you.’
I considered that last threat, something about it bothering me – like words I couldn’t make out on a page or an itch I couldn’t scratch. ‘I’ve never wanted to hurt my people,’ I said, then looked into the swirling black within Seneira’s eyes that somehow carried all the way across the endless miles back to my enemy’s own. ‘But I’m going to find out who you are one day and kill you all the same.’
Seneira’s mouth opened to speak, but then her fists clenched. ‘No, I think that’s all we want to hear from you.’ She blinked her eyes then looked at me. They were green again, and filled with tears. ‘Do it now, Kellen, burn this atrocity out of me.’
I dipped the needle back into the molten copper, and for the next hour I did what had to be done; the deed was difficult and dangerous, and listening to her screams as the worm twitched and seethed beneath her skin was almost more than I could bear as I struggled to perform the spell, but I didn’t waver, not once. Her courage kept my hand steady and my mind focused.
When it was done, the tiny black ashes of what remained of the worm slid down the tracks of her tears. She wiped it all away with the sleeve of her shirt. For a while she was silent, then finally she said, ‘Thank you, Kellen.’
I should have felt relief that she was safe, and gratitude because things could have gone so very badly. Instead a fury seethed inside me. My people – my own people – had done this, were doing it still to the others whose bracelets they possessed. All to bring a new form of the shadowblack – the darkest legacy of my people – into the lives of innocents. The black markings around my own eye began to smoulder with a heat that was soon matched inside my chest. My left eye kept blinking uncontrollably, and each time it did, I saw a vision – of fire, of destruction. Murder and mayhem with me at its head, destroying my enemies. Burning them alive. Killing. Killing. Killing.
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