Charmcaster

by Sebastien de Castell

  Travellers in garments both familiar and foreign to me came and went. Most devoted themselves to drinking or gambling, others huddled together in quiet corners, negotiating secret arrangements. Some stood by themselves, waiting nervously until a newcomer arrived, then rushing to embrace them in a tearful reunion.

  As the hour grew late, a trio of musicians joined us to perform songs I’d never heard before on instruments I didn’t recognise. A few people got up and danced in twos and threes or even more while others took their repose on the couches on the far side of the cave where neither the music nor the light from the lanterns quite reached. Young men and women – far too well groomed to have just come from the road – made their way to those on the couches and engaged them in discreet conversations. Sometimes they’d leave together, hand in hand. A fellow with shoulder-length hair, rich in golds and light browns, approached Nephenia. He whispered something to her that made her laugh. Soon they were dancing.

  ‘Something troubling you, kid?’ Ferius asked.

  ‘Nothing. I’m fine.’

  Reichis hopped over onto my shoulder and sniffed at my neck. ‘Jealousy. Smells like regret only more bitter.’

  I pushed his head away. ‘I’m not …’

  ‘Not what, kid?’ Ferius asked.

  ‘Nothing. I’m not anything. Just leave me alone.’

  A woman who might have been a couple of years older than me, or maybe a couple of decades – it was hard to tell with all the make-up she wore – sauntered over and cooed at Reichis, ‘Well, will you look at that? What a handsome, handsome fellow!’ She said this to him while putting her hand on my chest, her fingers magically slipping between the buttons of my shirt.

  Reichis ignored her, stretching his neck to peer down at Ferius’s cards. ‘Make the human go away, Kellen. She’s bugging me.’

  Unaware of Reichis’s disdain, she leaned over until her nose was practically touching his, even as her breath managed to somehow tease my neck. ‘I’ll bet all the ladies ask if they can run their fingers through his fur, don’t they?’

  The squirrel cat gave her a sniff. ‘Kellen, tell her she stinks of three different skinbag men and at least two women. She should really take a bath before—’

  ‘Would you shut up?’ I asked.

  The comfort girl’s eyes went wide right before she slapped me across the face. Despite the shock of the blow, what really struck me was that there was a moment there – just an instant – where I saw genuine hurt in her eyes. Only then did I realise I’d been wrong before and she actually wasn’t much older than me. I felt oddly ashamed. ‘I was talking to the squirrel cat,’ I said, as earnestly as I could.

  ‘Don’t take offence, darlin’,’ Ferius said to the young woman. ‘The boy gets cranky when he ain’t had his beauty sleep. Now me, I like to stay up late. How about you get us the biggest tray of drinks you can find and meet me up in my room in an hour or three?’

  She threw the comfort artisan a coin with all the care of someone tossing a petal from a daisy into the wind. As it spun in the air it flashed with the distinct shine of pure gold and the glimmer of a tiny green emerald embedded in its centre. The comfort artisan caught it neatly in her hand. Even before her fingers closed around it, the smile returned to her face, and a look of curious delight appeared in the slight narrowing of her eyes. ‘Why, that sounds just fine, sweetheart,’ she replied, her accent suddenly matching that of the Argosi. Somehow that annoyed me – as if I was the butt of a joke.

  After the comfort artisan had gone, I asked Ferius, ‘What are you doing inviting someone like her up to your room?’

  ‘What? A woman can’t have a little company to pass the time? Besides, I got aches in my shoulders and these folks can do wonders with their hands.’

  ‘She’s a prostitute. It’s reprehensible.’ Even as the words came out of my mouth, I realised they didn’t sound very good. In my defence, prostitution is a forbidden profession among the Jan’Tep. Of course, so is being a spellslinger.

  Ferius shot me a look. ‘That girl ain’t done nothing to you. Neither have I, for that matter. Let the meanderings of other lives pass you by, kid. There ain’t nothing you need to give them, or take from them neither.’

  The Way of the Argosi is the Way of Water, I recited to myself. Ferius must’ve taught me that lesson a hundred times by now. So simple and uncomplicated, yet I was no better at holding on to it than I would be grasping at raindrops.

  ‘You’re right,’ I said, dislodging Reichis as I rose from my chair. ‘I should go apologise to her.’

  Ferius caught my arm. ‘That girl’s smiling right now. She’s got more money in her hand than she’s probably seen in a month. Leave her be.’

  ‘But she thinks I’m—’

  ‘A rude, foul-tempered, self-absorbed hick who ain’t worth her time – which ain’t far off right about now. So is this apology of yours to make her feel better? Or are you really just trying to get her to make you feel better about yourself?’

  Before I could offer up any defence of my intentions, Ferius pulled out a card from inside her waistcoat. It was old and worn, the inks a dark blood-red. I recognised this as coming from the deck of debts she carried with her. ‘Here endeth the lesson.’

  I took the card. Reluctantly. This deck had different suits from her usual ones; in this case it depicted a pair of vines with sharp, glistening barbs. The name at the bottom read, Two of Thorns. ‘What does it mean?’ I asked.

  ‘It means “be nicer to strangers”, kid,’ she said, then turned her attention back to the game.

  Nephenia stopped dancing and came by to let us know that she and Ishak were going off to find something to eat. I very nearly asked whether her comfort boy was going to join her, but I still had the card in my hand and managed to keep my mouth shut. A small victory in my endlessly failed pursuit of not embarrassing myself all the time.

  After the requisite exchanging of growls with Ishak, Reichis declared he needed to wander the rest of the cave so he could study the other games. My strong suspicion was that his real motive was to look for opportunities to sneak a coin or two away from distracted players. He might’ve taken an interest in gambling, but the squirrel cat’s first love would always be thievery.

  Ferius must’ve had the same thought, because she grinned at me and said, ‘Always knows how to make himself at home that one …’ The smile disappeared from her face as she caught sight of something behind me. I spun in my chair as I reached into my pouches. Not again, I thought, as my fingertips touched the powders. I’m not letting Ferius get hurt because of me again.

  There were two of them. They walked towards us, casual as can be. Nobody else even took note of them, maybe because there wasn’t much to see. The man wore simple travelling clothes: a worn-out shirt the colour of wheat left too long on the stalk and trousers a shade darker. His hair was grey and short enough that it didn’t matter that it hadn’t seen a comb in a while. The woman looked much the same, though she carried herself with that sort of elegance some old people have that you can’t seem to put your finger on but you know is there all the same.

  ‘Mind if we sit in a few hands?’ she asked.

  The man dropped himself down into a chair without waiting for an answer. When I looked at Ferius, she had her smile back. ‘Always room for new money.’

  I let the powders slip from my fingers and back into the pouches, but I kept my eyes on the old-timers as they were dealt into the game. I suspected they might be Argosi, so I watched their every move closely. It took me almost an hour to figure out what was going on, but eventually I saw that there were two different card games taking place at our table: one between all the players, and another just between Ferius and the old man.

  How did I know this? Because I’ve spent the last year studying the way Ferius Parfax handles cards. I’ve watched her gamble with them, use them as weapons, or just slide them around her fingers as part of some mindless meditation. What I’d never seen was her bothering to look at he
r own cards when she gambled. Yet now she was transfixed by her own hand, taking far too long to decide which one to discard when her turn came. The other players paid no heed, except to comment that maybe her lucky streak was finally coming to an end.

  ‘You gonna play one of those cards?’ the old man asked. ‘Or you figure if you stare at them long enough they’ll change into better ones?’

  I followed what came next without so much as blinking. That’s how I saw that when she finally did drop a card onto the pile it looked ever so slightly thicker than the others. When the old man’s turn came and he dropped one of his own, Ferius’s card was still there, but the one she’d stuck underneath was gone. They went around like this for a while before I noticed Ferius picking up her mug to take a drink. As she did, I saw her eyes flicker just for an instant to the top of the card now hidden in the cuff of her shirt. The old man had his own trick: he’d slap the table for the dealer to give him another card. When he picked it up, I could see he’d slipped the one he’d got from the discard pile in front so he could examine it in his hand without anyone knowing. Then he’d pat the knee of the woman next to him, and the card would be gone – no doubt left there for her to see. She caught me staring and gave me a wink.

  Definitely Argosi, I thought. All this time, while everyone else was playing a form of poker called Brushfire Hold ’Em, Ferius and the elderly couple were exchanging cards from their Argosi decks, conversing silently in that secret language that used cards to say things words apparently couldn’t. Then, as abruptly as they’d arrived and without a word of farewell, the couple pocketed their remaining coins and got up to leave.

  I’m not sure why, but it surprised me when Ferius spoke up. ‘Fancy a drink? They got a case of Daroman whisky here that folks swear makes the dead rise up from the grave just to have a taste.’

  The invitation was perfectly innocuous, as these things go, and yet it sounded off to me – inappropriate, somehow. Evidently the couple had the same reaction, because the old man stopped in his tracks. Without turning back he replied, ‘It’s gettin’ late, the wind’s blowin’, and the world is full of things to drink.’

  ‘Suit yourselves,’ Ferius said, then went back to her game, humming to the music and playing cards with a smile on her face as if she were having the luckiest night of her life.

  I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look so sad.

  15

  The Tracker

  It drove me crazy, not knowing what had gone on between Ferius and the other two Argosi, so before she could stop me, I ran out of the cave and up the stairs. Outside the saloon, I waited a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the darkness and then knelt to see if I could spot their tracks. There were footprints everywhere, but I wasn’t so much looking for a shape as a pattern.

  There you are, I thought. Two sets of footprints, side by side. I followed them along the dirt road, moving slowly, quietly, the way Ferius does sometimes. Don’t walk, I told myself. Dance. Glide along the surface of the earth like an Argosi. I’m pretty sure I looked like a drunk flitting around the road imagining himself a prancing pony.

  I probably got about fifty feet before my legs went out from under me and I fell face first to the ground.

  ‘Always said they ought to teach subtlety before they teach daring,’ the old man said, looking down at me. ‘Fool can’t even run proper.’

  I tried to push myself up, but my limbs felt weak. Rubbery, almost. Something pinched at the nape of my neck. I managed to reach back and pull it out. My vision had become blurry, but when I held it close to my eyes it looked like a small thorn. I looked up at my attacker. ‘You poisoned me?’

  ‘Don’t go cryin’ to your Jan’Tep momma, now. It’ll wear off in a minute or two.’

  The woman gave him a poke in the ribs. ‘Getting him to stop following us is our right. Taunting him isn’t.’

  ‘I’ll show you taunting,’ I said. Well, I slurred, anyway.

  I felt the man’s boot rest against my lower back. ‘You get up, I’ll just put you down again. What did you think you were doing anyway, trying to stalk us with that clumsy arta tuco of yours?’

  Ferius hardly ever uses the proper terms, but I seemed to recall that arta tuco was the Argosi talent of subtlety. Apparently I wasn’t all that subtle. ‘I came to find out who you are.’

  ‘To you? Nobody. A breeze that passed you by on a quiet evening.’

  ‘Then who are you to Ferius?’

  ‘Even less than that if she keeps to herself. Something far worse if she doesn’t.’

  Suddenly the man’s boot was off my back, and I saw him stumble. ‘That’s enough of that nonsense,’ the woman said. She looked down at me. ‘We’re leaving now, young man. You’ll do neither yourself nor the Path of the Wild Daisy any favours if you seek us out again.’ She led the man away, down the road, pausing to toss something small and shiny over her shoulder that landed an inch from my nose and began spinning on its axis. A coin. Black on one side, silver on the other. Pretty, I thought, though that might’ve just been the drugs from the thorn talking. I stared as the extrusions on its surface flashed by me, one side looking like a lock, the other a key.

  ‘What’s this?’ I asked.

  ‘You only wanted to do right by your friend,’ the woman replied. ‘In return we brought you pain. We can’t rightly apologise, for we’d do worse if you tried to follow us again. Let the coin be an easing between us, and a parting.’

  The two of them resumed their walk down the road. Something the shadow-Ferius had said by the black ocean when I was lost in the desert came back to me. ‘Which one of you is the Path of the Rambling Thistle?’

  I could just make out the woman’s laugh. ‘You see? She told us he was clever.’

  ‘Not that clever,’ the old man rumbled, then shouted back to me, ‘We both are, idjit.’

  By the time I got to my room upstairs in the saloon even my sense of curiosity was exhausted. Reichis was already on the bed, curled up and looking none too pleased with me. ‘You took off without me,’ he growled accusingly.

  ‘You were busy stealing stuff.’

  He glared at me with those beady eyes of his. ‘Your shirt’s covered in dust. Those two Argosi do that?’

  I wondered briefly how he knew they were Argosi. Maybe he can smell it. ‘It was nothing. I’m fine.’

  ‘You want me to go kill the two skinbags? Just say the word, Kellen.’

  Reichis says things like that all the time, but this time he sounded serious.

  ‘What’s got into you?’

  He turned his muzzle away from me. ‘Nothing. Don’t care anyway. Go get yourself killed next time for all I care.’

  I was too tired for a fight, so I locked the door to the room and wedged the chair under the knob just in case. The oil lamp at my bedside had been refilled, so I closed the window and picked up the pile of curtains from the floor to start hanging them back up. Dawn wasn’t far off, and despite my fears of falling back into shadow, I’d probably sleep better without the morning light streaming in. I heard a shuffling from the road outside. When I looked down, I was greeted by the sight of two people strolling along hand in hand. It was Nephenia. The guy with her was the one she’d danced with earlier.

  A few unkind thoughts came to me then, but I was keenly aware of the two-of-thorns card in my pocket. Besides, I had no right to expect anything from Nephenia. There’d never been any promises between us. When I’d learned she was betrothed to Panahsi – or Pan’erath as he went by now – I figured that was that. Neph had moved on and so should I. Then I’d met Seneira and for a brief moment I’d let myself believe there might be something between us. That was stupid, I guess. I was an outlaw spellslinger with a curse around my left eye and a spell warrant out for my head. Nobody needed that kind of trouble in their lives.

  ‘Ugh,’ Reichis said, sniffing the air and then jumping onto the bed to bury his nose in the pillow.

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘Self-pity sti
nks even worse than jealousy.’

  I stripped down to my breeches and got under the covers. ‘You know what stinks even worse than that? Squirrel cats, that’s what.’

  Reichis curled himself up near my chest, taking up more than his share of the bed. ‘I’m going to piss under the covers while you’re asleep.’

  It sounded like a jab, but I’ve learned to take his threats seriously. This situation required the subtlety of a lord magus and the cunning of an Argosi. Or maybe just the petulance of a six-year-old. ‘Of course you’re going to piss the bed,’ I replied. ‘You can’t help yourself. Everybody knows squirrel cats have poor bladder control.’

  His head popped up and his beady eyes fixated on me. ‘You take that back. I have perfect control. Total control.’

  I shrugged. ‘If you say so.’

  He stuck his head back into the fur of his chest and grumbled awhile.

  I was just drifting off to sleep when I heard Reichis speak again. ‘She came into your room to refill the lamp.’

  ‘Huh? Who?’

  ‘Nephenia. She was the one who took down the curtains and brought in the oil lamp to make sure you wouldn’t have to wake up in the dark. I can smell her scent on the lamp. She’s the one who refilled it. She’s the one who’s been watching over you since we left the desert.’

  ‘She said everyone took turns.’

  ‘We were too beat-up, and those stupid medicines Ferius carries around kept us too tired to help. It should have been me guarding you, Kellen. I’m your business partner, not her. But I couldn’t. I was too weak. Nephenia watched over you. Every night.’

  I didn’t know what to say to that. Reichis sounded … fragile. Finally I said, ‘Guess you owe me a pair of fresh rabbits.’

  He gave a short sniff, then said, ‘One.’

  ‘Okay, one rabbit.’