‘Who are you?’ I asked. I kept my hands at my sides where they could quickly reach my powders if things went badly. Who are you kidding? I thought. When do these things not go badly?
He didn’t speak, but he did smile. That was even more troubling, because his face was covered with a red lacquer funeral mask like those the Mahdek placed on their dead to ward away demons. Somehow the rigid surface of the mask altered its shape in response to the wearer’s expression. Right now the lines of the mouth were twisting up into a hideous grin as the ridges of the eyes narrowed.
He hadn’t answered my question, though, which was unusual. Jan’Tep mages tend to favour elaborate, long-winded death threats. The red mage, however, kept silent. He walked a few yards away and knelt down to the cobblestones. With his index finger he traced a circle around himself. Wherever his finger went, a trail of red sparks followed, leaving a glimmering ring all around him.
Show-off.
‘You want to duel me, is that it?’
My opponent stood back up and folded his arms across his chest, evidently waiting for me to draw my own circle. Having only ever sparked my breath band, I couldn’t work any of the types of magic that would make a spell circle useful. But over the past year of being attacked by mages, thugs, hextrackers and bounty hunters, I’d come to learn that the most precious resource before a fight is time. Time to think. Time to plan.
I reached into the pouch on the left side of my belt and took out a handful of black powder. I slowly let it spill from my hand, turning so it formed a dusty ring around me. When I was done I looked at him with as much false bravado as I could muster. ‘It’s customary to set terms before a duel.’
The red mage offered no reply. That in itself set the terms: if he won, he could do whatever he wanted with me. If I won … Well, we both knew that wasn’t going to happen.
Think, damn it. Ferius says every trap has an escape. You just need to find it.
‘May I have a moment to meditate?’ I asked.
Again I received no reply, but since he didn’t immediately kill me, I took that as a yes.
Okay, I need a plan. A devilishly clever plan. No … wait … I’m looking at this backwards. I need to know his plan. Why would he go to the trouble of a duel when he’s obviously more powerful than I am?
He’d used a silk spell on Neph, Reichis and Ishak to put them to sleep. He’d have to divert a portion of his concentration to it to keep them unconscious. So why not use something simpler like iron binding magic? That way they’d be restrained while forced to watch as he blew me to pieces. Why did he want to keep this private so badly?
The red mage dropped his hands to his sides and I just about jumped out of my circle. He gave a twitch of his fingers to let me know he was tired of waiting.
He really doesn’t like me, I thought, seeing how the lines of his mask twisted and turned into an expression of both fury and hunger. That wasn’t an uncommon reaction of course. Proper mages resent spellslingers for giving magic a bad name. Someone who’d sparked all six bands would have an especially big grudge against someone like me.
All of that left me with roughly seven possibilities to explain my situation. Six were terrible and meant I’d be dead in the next few seconds. One was still pretty awful, but there was a chance – just a chance – that I might survive it.
I decided to test that theory by pulling a pinch of red and black powders from my pouches, tossing them into the air without warning and forming the somatic shapes with my fingers. ‘Carath,’ I said, breaking about three hundred years of Jan’Tep duelling tradition.
The red mage brought his own index fingers together and turned his hands in opposite directions, invoking an ember shield that barely even glowed as the red and black fires of my spell met their end against it. He retaliated by bending all four fingers at the second knuckle and then flicking them open. The tattooed grey band on his forearm sparked and the spell we call the iron wave struck me in the centre of the chest with the force of a battering ram. I was knocked back several feet. The breath fled my lungs and my ears rang as if someone had stuck a very large bell over my head and hit it with a mallet.
But I wasn’t dead, which meant I was right.
The mage wanted to show me how tough he was, but without actually killing me. ‘You’re here to delay me, aren’t you? To keep me from tracking down your employers before they finish getting what they want from Janucha.’
The expression on the red lacquer mask became one of benevolent amusement as the mage gave a slight nod.
It was that look as much as anything else that made me say something very stupid. ‘What’s it like being an errand boy for cowards who torment innocent girls because they’re too scared to fight their own battles?’
This was one of those times when I would’ve been better off heeding the two of thorns card in my pocket that warned against insulting strangers. The brows and ridges of my opponent’s lacquer mask took on a distinctly pissed-off appearance. He hit me with a bolt of ember lightning that hurt much, much more than his previous spell.
It took me a minute to force myself back to my feet. Being partially electrocuted isn’t great for your balance. My only consolation was that I had confirmed three important facts.
First, your bosses clearly don’t want me dead yet.
With considerable effort I stumbled back into my little circle. Once I was reasonably certain I wasn’t about to fall down again, I gave the red mage my best smile. Something wet dripped down my chin. I think I was drooling. ‘Guess it’s my turn,’ I said, sounding like a drunk with missing front teeth.
The mask’s upper lip curled as the red mage gave me a look of utter disdain.
Second, you really don’t like me.
With a dismissive wave he gestured for me to take my best shot.
And third, we both know without a shadow of a doubt that I haven’t got a chance against you.
That last part was my only hope. Enna was right when she said that no matter how dangerous you might think you are, there’s always someone out there who’s a little more dangerous.
I just had to become that person.
34
The Trickster
There’s a sad truth about magic: the guy who’s got more of it almost always wins. It’s not like being strong, because a strong man can still be slow. And it’s not like being fast either, because a quick opponent might still make stupid mistakes. Casting a proper spell? It takes power, speed, precision and a mind disciplined enough to envision complex esoteric geometries. The reason why Jan’Tep mages are so convinced of their superiority over everyone else is because for the most part it’s true. My job was to make that fact irrelevant.
‘Watch carefully,’ I told my opponent, reaching into my pocket and taking out one of the castradazi coins. It had a pleasant weight to it, but more importantly the edges were thin, almost sharp. ‘In just a moment I’m going to make this coin disappear.’
My opponent’s fingers clenched just a fraction before he relaxed them. A trained mage rarely does this because tense finger muscles aren’t good for spellcasting.
This guy must hate me even more than I thought.
I tossed the coin in the air with my left hand a couple of times before I got the motion right. Even now I couldn’t help but feel a tingle at the way it floated in the air, spinning slowly on its axis as it danced a foot above my palm. I reached into my right pouch with my free hand and took a pinch of red powder. I held it up for him to see. ‘Now, I know what you’re thinking, friend. You’re thinking, even if he could cast that fire spell of his with just one hand, what difference would it make? No matter how much of an explosion he puts into the spell, it’s never going to get through a proper ember shield. But watch carefully …’
I closed my right hand around the powder and pulled my arm back as though I were going to throw it at him. With barely a twitch of his fingers he brought up an ember shield. Okay, fast hands. Fast hands, I repeated to myself. In a single sm
ooth motion, I dropped my left hand into the black powder pouch. As the coin began to fall, I grabbed a pinch and threw it in the air while my right hand tossed the red powder. My fingers formed the somatic shapes and I uttered the invocation just as the powders collided together.
‘Carath.’
Here’s the thing about shield spells: there are a lot of different kinds. Why? Because different types of energy and matter are repulsed by different kinds of barriers. The reason I’d rattled on about fire and explosions was because I wanted the red mage to invoke an ember shield. They’re great against energy-based attacks, but less so against physical objects. So while he thought I was using the coin to distract him, what I was really doing was using it as the weapon.
The explosion did nothing of course – barely more than a flash of red and black flame that mostly singed my face because I hadn’t actually used the spell on it. Instead I’d made the coin the focal point, channelling the breath magic into it and sending it flying at my enemy. It passed through his ember shield like a rock through rainwater, the spinning edge slicing through his silk garment and burying itself a half-inch deep into his flesh.
He tore at it, grunting from the pain. This might make me a bad person, but the sound was sweet to my ears. ‘You like that?’ I called out. ‘Well, here’s another.’
I tossed a second coin into the air and pulled the same stunt with the powders. The shimmer of an iron kinetic shield flared up, which was fine with me since this time I just let the coin fall and used red and black fire on him. Kinetic shields, as you might imagine, aren’t particularly good at stopping fire.
I had to give this guy credit – he was fast. He dropped the first barrier and got an ember shield up just in time to keep from being burned alive. He got singed for his troubles, though, and growled in rage. Before he could use his own spell against me, I pulled my third act. ‘Watch the pretty coin now!’ I said as I threw it into the air. I pulled a great deal of powder and shouted ‘Carath!’ as loud as I could.
The barrier the red mage summoned was a particularly impressive one – resistant to both kinetic force and energy. Neither coin nor flames got to him. In fact, nothing happened at all. I’d tossed the powders too far away and they hadn’t collided.
The mage’s mask contorted itself with a mixture of rage and joy as he realised what had happened.
‘Wait,’ I said, holding up my hands. ‘One more trick, please! It’s a really good one.’
‘No,’ he replied, his voice spell-masked to sound like it came from everywhere and nowhere at once. At least I’d finally got an actual word out of him. His hands formed the somatic shape for lightning, and as he drew on his ember and iron bands, I crossed my arms in front of my chest and waited.
Proper mages accuse spellslingers of being little more than frontier carnival magicians – the type who use petty tricks to simulate magic because they have none of their own. Well, the secret to fake conjuration is to fool the audience into watching the wrong thing. In this case, the red mage had been so concerned with my coins and with the bolts of fire, that he’d failed to notice the real trick: he’d missed the trail of black powder that had passed through his shield and got all over his chest. The instant he sparked his lightning spell, the powder caught fire.
He screamed as the flames ignited all over his lovely crimson silk garments. I found it pleasantly musical. It’s possible I’ve been spending too much time around a certain squirrel cat.
‘Told you it was a good trick,’ I said as he stumbled around, batting at the flames. I quickly grabbed for every rock on the ground I could find. There are any number of Jan’Tep spells that could put out a fire, but it’s hard to make them work when your opponent is pelting you with stones.
A sudden gust of wind spiralled around him, and the fire disappeared. Turns out some people can cast a dismissal spell while being hit with rocks. The shimmering of his bands lit up the darkness. Most Jan’Tep spells only use one or two of the bands. I mean, it just doesn’t take that much magic to kill someone. The red mage, though, was sparking iron, ember, sand and blood. I couldn’t even guess at what horrors he planned to unleash on me.
I pushed him too far, I realised too late. Whatever injunction his employers had given regarding my life, he was about to ignore it.
Between his two hands an oozing, blood-coloured force began to writhe. It was like watching a squirming creature emerge from a fire. Red sparks spun around it like flies on a corpse.
‘No, please,’ I said, backing away as fast as I could. ‘I have something you want!’
I didn’t, but it couldn’t hurt to try.
His hands extended out towards me, and with a slow but sickening anticipation, the foul thing he’d brought forth reached out for me. Even if I’d sparked the bands necessary for summoning a shield, I didn’t have a clue which one to use against his creation.
Sometimes at night I imagine myself dying. Burning. Drowning. Freezing. Being eaten alive. I’ve thought about them all in the hope that when the day finally came, the end wouldn’t be so frightening. Turns out it was all a colossal waste of time, because now that my death was here, I was so afraid I couldn’t so much as raise my hands to protect my face.
No tricks were going to save me now.
No trick did. Instead I was knocked aside as someone stepped between me and the red mage’s spell.
It was Nephenia.
35
The Box
No cry of pain erupted from her mouth as the foul spell struck her. There was no spray of blood from her body. I thought at first that the hideous, oozing creation the red mage had summoned was burrowing inside her, tearing her apart from within. It was only when I rolled back up to my feet that I saw Nephenia’s face. She didn’t look like she was in pain or even scared.
Shock can do that to a person – make them unaware that they’ve been hurt. It’s like they don’t realise what’s happened until a couple of seconds later when their heart stops beating and their legs fall out from under them. My eyes went to the spot where the spell had hit her, expecting to find a gaping wound. Instead I saw a rusted iron box. Trapped inside was a roiling mixture of darkness and light from the red mage’s spell. Nephenia shut the lid and took two steps towards him. ‘You used silk magic on me?’ she demanded, her voice filled with a rage I’d never heard from her before. ‘You put me to sleep?’
The Nephenia I’d known when we were initiates had been gentle, almost withdrawn. The charmcaster I’d met in the desert had been full of joy and recklessness. The woman before me now was just plain furious.
‘Stay back,’ the red mage said, his deep voice echoing all around us. ‘I did not come for you.’
If that was supposed to make her feel better, it clearly didn’t. Her expression only grew more incensed. Her hands shot forward. ‘Too. Damn. Bad.’
The box flung open as it struck him. His own creature slithered out and started to attack him. Mages are especially vulnerable to their own spells, and most – even a lord magus – would be done for. This guy, though? He managed to get his hands to form the somatic shapes for three different dismissal spells, causing his own creation to burst into its component forms of magic and then fade to nothingness. By then Nephenia had already reached into her coat and removed a small wooden whistle. She blew into it and I heard a shriek so loud I thought my ears would burst. It was evidently much worse when you were directly in the charm’s path, because the red mage slammed his hands over his ears. The lines of his mask twisted into an expression of pure agony.
Nephenia moved in close and punched him in the face – an impulsive attack rather than a wise one. She grunted in pain as her knuckles came back bloody from their collision with his lacquer mask. ‘Are you going to help?’ she asked me, more irritated than hurt.
‘Sorry.’ I got up and pulled powder from my pouches, but by then the red mage had somehow put up another shield that protected him from Nephenia’s charm. He struck out at her with a hastily constructed lightning
spell. The sparking blue tendrils grabbed hold of her, binding her tightly as they sent jolting shocks through her. ‘Stop!’ I shouted, and fired my own powder spell.
The red mage easily dismissed my attack, but then with a twist of his right hand he banished the lightning spell. Nephenia fell to the ground next to me, her body still shaking. When the mage looked down at her, the lines of his mask twisted into an expression that was hard to recognise at first. Despair.
His hands came up, fingers twisted into somatic shapes I didn’t recognise. Before I could get between him and Nephenia, his forearms crossed, the bands for silk and sand touching one another. They sparked so brightly that I was left blinded. I blinked furiously, trying to clear my vision. By the time I could see again, he was gone.
In the ensuing silence my own breathing became deafening. I went to Nephenia and knelt down to check her pulse. Her hand shot out and grabbed my wrist. ‘Nephenia?’ I asked. ‘Are you—’
‘I’m alive,’ she said, though she didn’t sound particularly happy about it. She pulled herself up, refusing my help. When she was standing again she locked eyes with me. ‘Never use a sleep spell on me, Kellen. Never.’
‘Why would I … Neph, I can’t even spark my silk band. Why would you think I’d—’
She shook her head and it was as if her whole body shivered in response. ‘I’m sorry.’ She turned and reached down to pick up the iron box only to toss it away. ‘Bastard.’
‘Me?’
‘Him of course! Do you have any idea how hard it was to make a netherbox?’ With the toe of her boot she kicked the remains of her wooden whistle. ‘And now my shrieking charm is busted too.’
That, of course, is the problem with charmcasting; anything you make with any real power either wears out over time or breaks after its first use. Still, I knew that couldn’t be what had so enraged Nephenia. She caught me watching and said, ‘I just hate silk magic, that’s all.’
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