The Black Shield (The Red Sword Book 2)

by Michael Wallace

  “You stand out,” Chantmer told Jethro. “Can you master a concealing spell? Good, do it now.”

  Once that was accomplished, they continued following the trail left by the dark acolyte for another few streets, then it seemed to either dissolve or double back on itself. Chantmer touched the sun-warmed stone of the buildings lining the street, searching for it, and decided that the trail was confused because it divided in two.

  “Zartosht must have brought his assistant,” he said. “And they split apart here.”

  “Are you sure she is the assistant?” Narud said. “Perhaps it’s the other way around.”

  “She had better be,” Chantmer said. “I fought the man, and he has some power to him. If the woman is his equal or better, we might have some difficulties.”

  “Her name is Jasmeen,” Jethro said.

  Chantmer gave him a sharp look. “How do you know that?”

  “I’ve been observing, asking questions. I have contacts in the palace, and some of them are not so discreet as they might be.”

  “You should have said something,” Chantmer said. “It would be another angle for us to get at them.”

  “I tried, and you dismissed me.”

  “Yes, well. Next time, mention it with more confidence. Is Zartosht stronger, or is it this Jasmeen character?”

  “Neither answers to the other. They seem to be equals.”

  “Ah, that makes sense. Like the two of us.” Chantmer gestured between himself and Narud. “I should have guessed it would be the same.”

  “Not precisely the same, no.” Jethro frowned. “Narud is a wizard and you are still an apprentice.”

  “Except that Narud isn’t commanding me,” Chantmer said irritably, “so the comparison holds true.”

  What was that thought he’d had about recruiting Jethro to a new order of wizards? The man was practically taunting him.

  Have yourself made a wizard, and his respect will return.

  Perhaps true, but irrelevant. There was no need to prove himself—that sort of thinking was for Nathaliey, perhaps, but not for him—his qualities would make themselves known sooner, rather than later.

  “Is there a way to know which trail belongs to Jasmeen and which to Zartosht?” Narud asked.

  Chantmer stepped up to the house where he’d noticed the trails diverging. He found one of them, but the other was too faint to pick up. A donkey cart clattered by, filled with baskets of dates and dried figs, and the wheels stirred up the magic further.

  “This one is Zartosht.” Chantmer glanced down the alley. “He’s headed for the souks.”

  “What for?” Narud asked. “Alchemy? Potions?”

  “Could be. I wish I knew where the other one went.”

  But Jasmeen’s trail—if that was indeed who it belonged to—disappeared somewhere on this street. She seemed to have picked up a little bit of the rune Zartosht had activated on his way out of the palace, but not enough to follow independently.

  “Never mind,” he said. “We’ll find Zartosht. That’s more than enough for tonight.”

  A few minutes later, they entered the twisting souks, with their carpet sellers, ironmongers, money changers, and spice shops. Chantmer expected Zartosht to linger among the shops selling exotic spices from the south—nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon—as some of the necromancer’s magic seemed to use physical components. Or maybe he would buy salves and elixirs sold in the apothecaries to mix his own potions and poisons; Chantmer had been careful in how he procured his food, aware that the enemy, frustrated in an attempt to reach them via magical means, could just as easily assassinate them via a tainted pastry or flagon of wine.

  But the dark acolyte had stopped at none of these places, and instead weaved his way through the souks in seemingly no pattern at all. Chantmer sensed where the man had touched a doorway or scraped a stone with the toe of his sandal, but he hadn’t lingered in any one place.

  “What the devil is he is up to?” Chantmer asked. “Why all this back and forth?”

  “Possibly searching for our traps, nothing more,” Narud said.

  “Something else just occurred to me. Why hasn’t King Toth come to Syrmarria to search for the library himself?”

  “Like I said when you suggested tearing down the palace, why do you assume it would be that easy? He might have no more success than his acolytes, not quickly enough to matter. He has a road to build, and kingdoms to conquer and enslave.”

  “The knowledge in that library is irreplaceable.”

  “He has his necromancy already,” Narud said. “Veyre is the land of the torturers guild—they have their own books, their own dark arts, and it seems that Toth is satisfied with their mastery.”

  “Exactly my thinking,” Chantmer said. “He doesn’t need our books, not like we do, anyway. The dark acolytes cut a few pages from the Book of Gods, but they haven’t made their way back in, and seem more intent on fighting us than finding the library. Why?”

  “To distract us from defending the gardens, most likely,” Narud said.

  “Maybe,” Chantmer said, but he wasn’t convinced. “Or maybe it would serve the enemy just as well to destroy the library as to capture it.”

  Jethro narrowed his eyes. “May the Brothers kill them if they try.”

  “Easy, friend,” Chantmer said.

  Chantmer understood the archivist’s sentiment; the first time he’d heard that someone had cut pages from the Book of Gods, it had made him physically ill. To imagine someone cutting all the books, tearing up scrolls and smashing ancient tablets, was almost too horrifying to contemplate.

  They reached the end of the maze-like souks and emerged from the canopies that marked every stall and storefront. He lifted his head to take in the warmth of the sun, but it had already dipped to the west, and shadows crept across the streets. The trail continued ahead, but it was growing faint; much longer and it would disappear entirely, and they’d be forced to return to the palace in defeat.

  The alley emptied into a large square. During the day, the square was an intersection of a dozen different alleys and roads, and foot, cart, and animal traffic made a chaotic jumble in the middle, with every individual swimming through opposing currents to get across.

  Now, night market people were chasing off those still trying to use it for transit. Men shoveled away the dung of horses, donkeys, and camels, as well as other rubbish that had accumulated throughout the day. Other people erected stalls and threw down carpets. Men lit enormous brass lamps around the edges, while women shuffled in with enormous baskets balanced on their heads, dropped them in place, then spread their wares. A man walked by clinking with copper mugs that festooned him like a jongleur’s bells, wheeling a larger kettle of water that he would sell by the cup to the thirsty people of the market.

  Another man sat on a rug and built a pyramid of molars, together with a row of pincers, pliers, and other tools for digging out infected teeth. Men and women stoked fires for cooking spits of meat, and the pungent odor of burning charcoal filled the air. Two men with turbans and dark, khat-stained teeth opened baskets and pulled out adders and cobras, which they began to charm with flutes while curious children watched. A man with monkeys gathered another crowd a safe distance from the snakes. One monkey teased and cavorted with the crowd, while the second collected coins in a bent metal cup.

  The whole market seemed to have materialized in minutes, and the three companions from the order looked through the growing crowds with frustration. There was no more trace of the dark acolyte, at least nothing that could be picked up against the background of charms and potions of card readers, fortune-tellers, and others using bits of weak and whispered magic that filled the air with a scent every bit as pungent as the smell of cook fires.

  Chantmer was about to suggest that they turn back when he noticed a curious clearing on the far side of the square in the middle of all the pressing mass of people. He was a good head taller than nearly everyone standing in his way, and he used his vantage to sc
an over the crowds. There was a second hole about a hundred feet west of the first. People bumped against both clearings, changed course, and skirted the edges without seeming to be aware that something was pushing them away.

  “I may have discovered our dark acolytes,” he said, “but I don’t suppose you can see from down there, since both of you are rather short. Follow me.”

  “Wait,” Narud said. “We need another cloaking spell.”

  “Yes,” Chantmer agreed. “Something more profound. Jethro, there’s one I know, something about umbra videtur, but the full incantation eludes me at the moment.”

  Jethro got a faraway look in his watery eyes, as if he were searching his own personal archives. A curt nod. “Yes, I know the one. I’ll feed you the words.”

  “But not here.” Chantmer looked about for a suitable place. “There, do you see the man with the wine casks? That will give us shelter.”

  When Chantmer, Narud, and Jethro reemerged from behind the casks a minute later, they were deep in a protective shield of magic, and the crowd bent around them, with people instinctively veering away or suddenly finding something interesting to look at on the far side of the night market. Chantmer could no longer see his own companions, but felt their presence easily enough. Narud was leading the other two, slow and cautious, but at a pace that allowed the movement of the crowd away from them to seem natural.

  They reached the first of the two empty spaces Chantmer had detected from the side of the square. People continued to stream into the night market, and he wondered why a young acrobat or juice seller didn’t notice the clear spot in the crowds and try to stake his claim, but apparently, they were all too weak-minded to attempt such a thing.

  To be honest, if the square had been empty, he’d have also walked past without a second thought. There was nobody visible, and no magic scent that he could detect. The dark acolytes had their skills in concealment, he had to admit, nearly equal to those of the order, and it made him wonder how many times they’d crossed paths in the palace with neither side detecting the other’s presence. Still, it was startling to see it play out right in front of his face.

  And disconcerting to stare at the center of the clearing and see nothing except a shimmer, like heat rising from a sun-baked stone. That shimmer must be the dark acolyte in the center doing . . . well, what, exactly? And which one was it, Jasmeen or Zartosht?

  Chantmer turned his hands palm down and let his power rise to the surface until his pores tingled. One incantation and he could sweep away the concealment.

  A hand closed on his wrist, and Narud whispered in his ear. “Don’t look for the enemy. Study the ground instead.”

  Chantmer stared at the paving stones, concentrating, and spotted movement. There was a sharpened quill scratching at the stone, suspended in the air by an invisible hand. The stylus scraped a rune into the stone, digging through caked-on dirt and dung and other filth to make a simple figure of some kind. When it finished, it began anew, repeating the strokes. A rune, something to call up magic here, in the center of the night market. It must be important to go to such effort, but what was it, exactly?

  Chantmer stepped forward, ignoring Narud’s warning hiss, and pressed against the buffer surrounding the dark acolyte. When he touched the edge of the clearing, his head felt suddenly light and distracted, and his feet wanted to carry him elsewhere. He resisted, but there was a physical presence, too, a firm and insistent hand, that pressed against his chest and tried to push him backward. He kept resisting until the feeling subsided, then dropped to his haunches a few feet away from the center of the empty space to watch.

  The quill made the same scratching mark, over and over. Very simple, nothing complex about it: a line, a circle at one end, and two crosshatches in the middle. Ah, no, that wasn’t the whole of it; there was also a complex rune, something in the old tongue, but it was already deeply embedded in the stone. Old, and dirt-caked; it was not new. So the acolyte had found this preexisting rune and was now adding a final touch to give a specific incarnation.

  What the devil were the acolytes doing? Raising something, he thought. Preparing a doorway for something to enter. The rune was the doorway, and the line, circle, and crosshatches represented what would pass through. There was danger here; he felt it radiating through his feet, into his legs, and then down through his arms to his trembling hands.

  Chantmer was losing control, and if he didn’t back away, his concealing magic would slip, and the enemy would spot him. He rose slowly and took a step back. And with that motion, the need to escape the dark acolyte’s protective bubble came upon him with a vengeance, and he wanted nothing more than to turn on his heel and run. He forced himself to slow, and continued walking until he’d stepped beyond the enemy’s magic shield.

  “What is it?” Narud’s voice whispered urgently from Chantmer’s right. The wizard was still invisible. “What did you see?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But whatever they’re doing, it’s something terrible, something that has the potential to destroy this city. We need to stop them.”

  He took in the crowded night market, now jammed with people. Probably one in every ten Syrmarrians was in this square right now, along with hundreds of foreign merchants and travelers. It was hard to imagine a worse place to fight a battle. Innocents would die.

  “We know where they are,” Chantmer said, “but we might not find them a second time if we return to the palace. We can’t let this opportunity pass—we have to destroy them now.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Nathaliey worked alone as the sun went down, moving methodically along the ridge as she placed her defenses. Her tools were dirt, stone, and wood. An outside observer might have thought her actions trivial and random: two sticks crossed here, a line traced in the dirt with circles on either side, five pebbles arranged in a line with another stick at the end, and finally, ancient letters laid out in leaves, sticks, and scribbles in the earth. It may look like nothing, but each was a mirror of runes and wards she had spent years building in the gardens of Memnet the Great, and she left a drop of blood on each one to endow it with magic.

  You are a wizard, she told herself. Markal knows it, you know it. There’s no need for the master to confirm. You have power, you have knowledge.

  And after telling herself this for the past hour, she nearly believed it, too. At all costs, she needed to avoid a crisis of confidence when it came time to face the enemy. She’d seen doubt overcome Markal at critical moments, and the effects were debilitating.

  The marauders were drawing near, only a turn or two below her, and the sound of their approach carried up the hillside: horses huffing for air, hooves thumping against the dirt road, and the boots of marauders, on foot so the animals would be fresher for battle. The enemy was close enough she could have called out a challenge. And yet she still had a few moments remaining if she continued to work in silence.

  Bronwyn had slowed her pace since Wolfram spotted the marauders from above, and she must have either sensed or seen the paladins in return and known the Blackshields were preparing for battle on the ridge. Dusk had arrived, and they’d have to fight in the dark, where the enemy would have an advantage. However, Bronwyn wouldn’t want to come charging the last miles and then fly into battle against the paladins, who’d been resting and preparing.

  There was another presence along with the marauders and their captain. Their new enemy, the one who’d despoiled the paladins’ supplies at Montlac. A whisper of magic rose from below and lingered in the air. He was imbuing Bronwyn and her forces with a dark power. Nathaliey redoubled her efforts, anxious to finish.

  She heard Markal before she saw him. He stood behind her, watching while she traced one of her runes in the dirt, running over it again and again, chanting its associated incantation as she did so. When she finished, she rose with a groan, wiped her hands on the cloth at her belt, and put her hands on her lower back, which was stiff from stooping.

  “There, tha
t’s as good as I can manage for now.”

  “It’s excellent work,” he said.

  She looked him over. “You seem well rested.”

  “I won’t be for long,” Markal said. “Our friend is approaching—do you sense him?”

  “Yes. He’s fed power to the marauders and their horses, giving them strength.”

  “He’s ahead of the rest now. On foot and alone. A hundred feet below us, just through the trees and around the bend.”

  Nathaliey looked down the hillside. The road hooked around a granite outcrop with a stunted tree sprouting from a fissure like a gnarled hat, then passed over bare rock and disappeared into the trees. She didn’t see the sorcerer, couldn’t sense whether or not he was on foot, as Markal could, but he was there, all right. A malignant energy, very close now.

  “Why is he alone?” she asked.

  “Maybe the same reason we’re waiting here instead of taking shelter with the Blackshields. He wants to test us personally.”

  Nathaliey gestured at her handiwork, which the entire company of marauders might have stumbled into without noticing, but which Toth’s acolyte would detect without trouble.

  “He can test my work.”

  “Your subplanto is weak,” Markal said. “See that twig? It’s out of alignment with the leaf and the longer stick.”

  “The twig with the bent tip?”

  “No, the one after that.”

  Now she saw what he meant and winced. “Too late to fix it now. I bound it pretty hard.”

  “The rest of it looks good, though. Some of it very good. You’ve got a good memory for these defenses, and you bound them well, considering the tools at hand and how little time you had to work.”