Charmcaster

by Sebastien de Castell

  I let it go. Dense as I am sometimes, even I could tell this wasn’t something she wanted to talk about. Not to me anyway.

  Nephenia went to where Ishak and Reichis lay and knelt beside them. ‘They’re alive, but they’re more vulnerable to sleep spells than we are.’

  The hyena stirred, and his head came up to lick Nephenia’s face.

  ‘Where is he?’ Reichis demanded sleepily. ‘Did I kill that stupid mage?’

  ‘Almost,’ I replied, coming to sit next to him. ‘You’ll get him next time.’

  ‘Got that right,’ the squirrel cat growled. He reared up on his hind legs and toppled almost immediately. ‘Just gonna nap here awhile first.’

  ‘They’ll need time and rest,’ Nephenia said. She was watching me carefully as I retrieved my castradazi coins from the ground and checked my powders. I guess she knew what I was going to say next. She didn’t look pleased about it.

  ‘I’m going to need a favour, Neph.’

  The problem with being attacked by vastly superior mages is that they make you late for important appointments like hunting down other mages.

  Dissuading Nephenia from following me hadn’t been easy. She’d assumed I was somehow trying to be noble and therefore convince her to stay behind so that I could venture into danger alone. It’s funny how little people know me sometimes.

  The simple truth was this: while the red mage had knocked me around a lot, he’d been toying with me, never using his full strength. When Nephenia had attacked him, he’d instinctively struck back with lightning that was much worse than anything he’d used on me. She was in rougher shape than she let on. Reichis and Ishak could barely even walk on their own. Someone needed to get them back to Janucha’s home and take care of them.

  So why didn’t I go with them? Why not abandon this obviously doomed attempt to track down the people responsible for this mess? Because I had no choice. Until now, the ones controlling the obsidian worm had been a step ahead of us. There was no way they’d predict we might defeat the red mage. Even if he could warn them in time, I was willing to bet they’d expect me to go back with the others to recuperate. This was my one chance to surprise them. I had to press that advantage before they could alter their plans.

  Now all I had to do was find the damned black thread again.

  My heart kept racing in an attempt to convince me that I really ought to be running away. I forced myself to relax just enough to attempt a little whisper magic. ‘Come on, Suzy,’ I pleaded, ‘show me the path to the onyx bracelet. Help me find those sons of—’

  A blast of air hit my right eye – this one burning hot.

  ‘Ow! Stop attacking me all the time!’

  The sensation was gone as quickly as it had appeared. The sasutzei wasn’t trying to hurt me – just warn me off my present course of action. In her defence, the rest of my body was likewise concerned. ‘Look,’ I whispered furiously, ‘I know that guy got the jump on us, but I’ll be more careful this time.’

  Nothing. No blast of hot or cold air, no reply at all. I tried a hundred whispers to cajole her into helping me, but none of them worked. Either the mages had broken their connection to the obsidian worm, or the sasutzei had simply decided not to show me the path.

  Anger roiled inside my gut, rising up in my throat. I felt like someone was grabbing me by the lapels and shaking me, laughing in my face all the while. If I wanted to attempt whisper magic again, I’d need to calm down.

  I didn’t even try.

  The skin around my left eye had begun to tingle, like a fingertip tracing a line along the winding markings of the shadowblack. Usually when the attacks come, they bring a sudden, burning pain. This time was different. It was almost playful. Beckoning me. Inviting me. A contrary sensation arose in my right eye as the sasutzei roused itself, hitting me with short blasts of cold as it tried to warn me off. I ignored it.

  I opened myself to the shadowblack for the first time. ‘I bet you know the way,’ I said aloud. ‘Show me.’

  The glow of oil lanterns along the street faded from view. So too did the slivers of light from the windows of the homes on either side of me. Even the stars above me flickered off one by one until I found myself shrouded in darkness. The city itself disappeared, leaving behind only a desolate landscape unfit for the living. I looked down to find the cobblestones beneath my feet were gone and I now stood upon black sand.

  I was lost in shadow.

  The overwhelming sense of solitude was like being smothered beneath a thick blanket of sorrow. The warning blasts from the sasutzei withered away. Whatever the shadowblack was, whatever my grandmother had chosen to band me with as a child against all the laws of my people, I had taken my first willing step inside it.

  ‘Show me,’ I said again.

  Though there were no roads in this place, the shadows at my feet gathered and thickened, twisting into a path. I had no reason to trust the shadowblack, and yet somehow I knew it would lead me where I wanted to go. It was as eager to find the mages as I was; it knew what I would do to them once I found them. That was the real reason why I’d sent Nephenia away with Ishak and Reichis – the one I couldn’t bring myself to say out loud.

  Enna had been right when she’d given me that card on the bridge. There was a price to be paid to put a stop to the conspirators who had so quickly brought two nations to the brink of war. It was a price someone like Ferius – someone who’d fought and won against their own darkest impulses – should never have to pay. It was a price I wouldn’t allow any of my friends to pay.

  Someone had to kill the mages.

  Not try to stop them.

  Kill them.

  It had to be me.

  36

  The Tower

  I walked in shadow until my soul couldn’t take it any more. Without a sun or moon or sky of any kind, there was no way to keep track of time. I knew only that with every step I felt sicker. More hollow.

  Though the landscape wasn’t that of Cazaran, still I saw people there. Shadows of people, anyway. They muttered to themselves, staring into the distance at things I could not see. They spoke of longing, or consuming dread, or terrible shame. They whispered their deepest and darkest secrets, but I closed my ears to them, afraid their sorrows would swallow me whole.

  I felt myself begin to sink into the onyx sand. ‘Let me go,’ I begged the shadowblack.

  The skin around my left eye blazed, as if the markings themselves were angered by my plea. Just as the pain became unbearable, I found myself released. Bright lights blinded me, a thousand pinpricks stabbed at my eyes. I was on my knees, staring up at the stars. My surroundings were only dimly lit by a half-moon, yet for the first few seconds I had to squint from the intensity of it all.

  I struggled to my feet. It was still dark, so I couldn’t have walked for more than a few hours. There were new scrapes along my arms and shoulders that must have come from stumbling into the edges of buildings, and a cut on my cheek that I couldn’t explain. When I brought my fingertips higher – to the skin around my left eye – I was sure the markings had grown again.

  I was in a narrow alleyway and had to walk to the street to get my bearings. There were fewer lights here than in the centre of the city. A patchwork of unremarkable storehouses and dull little supply depots dotted the sloped terrain that led up to a tall arch and a wide road beyond.

  The eastern trade route, I thought. I must be in the warehouse district.

  The slapping of sandalled feet against the cobblestones forced me to duck back into the alleyway. I waited and watched until a man in simple merchant’s clothes walked past me towards a tall, unguarded grain tower. He looked like a perfectly unassuming trade delegate, probably from the Seven Sands. Only, I’d been around those people. Folks on the frontier tend to walk with a sort of wide-legged stride, almost a strut. The man before me carried himself with a good deal more formality, as though he were walking past admiring throngs rather than along an empty street.

  If there’s a surer
way to identify a Jan’Tep mage from a major house, I haven’t found it yet, but I had to be certain.

  I dug in my pocket and took out my castradazi coins. I still didn’t know what each did, but right now that wasn’t important. I chose one of the coins at random and threw it at a brass-rimmed barrel sitting outside a supply shed just after the would-be merchant passed by. The clang gave him a fright. When he spun around I saw the tell-tale glow of sparking bands beneath his shirtsleeves.

  Got you.

  I waited for him to reassure himself that it was just the sort of random noise you hear around buildings that tend to attract rats. Once he resumed his march, I retrieved my coin and padded softly behind him. I was moving in a passable imitation of the way Reichis stalks a rabbit. I probably looked pretty ridiculous, but if anyone saw me I’d have bigger problems to deal with than public humiliation.

  The mage in merchant’s clothes walked to a solitary grain tower. It didn’t look like much to me, but he circled it carefully before stopping at the door. I hid in the shadows of the building opposite and watched as he performed a series of small, precise gestures that ended with his palm an inch or so from the door where he drew a small circle in the air. A series of clicks was accompanied by a glow that emanated from the centre of the door. A second later, it opened of its own accord and light streamed out. The mage began to step inside but then stopped, turned, and stared right at me.

  Crap, I thought, my fingers longing to reach for my powders.

  Every instinct screamed at me to run. That’s not unusual though – my instincts are cowards. But a minuscule sensible part of my brain reminded me that I was standing in complete darkness whereas the mage’s eyes had just been hit with the light from inside the door. Chances are he was completely night-blind right now, and would be for at least a few more seconds.

  I started counting in my head, which is actually a pretty bad way to keep time when you’re nervous. For just an instant the mage’s bands sparked again, but then he turned and entered the building.

  I let myself breathe and listened for the sound of his footsteps. I could just begin to hear him walking upstairs when the door began to close itself. It moved so slowly that I wondered why he hadn’t pushed it closed before heading up the stairs. Then it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen him touch the door at all. Doing so would almost certainly trigger an alarm spell or, more likely, do something unpleasant to the would-be intruder.

  Move, I told myself. In a few seconds the door would be closed and I’d have lost my chance. On the other hand, if he’s not already at the top of the stairs, he’ll see you coming in.

  It’s moments like these when you really need to dig inside yourself for some deep well of courage, determination, or just a reckless disregard for your own well-being. Lacking any of those things, I thought back to Cressia’s eyes rolling up into her head as oily black tears dripped down her cheeks and the worm’s tendrils flowed out from her mouth, pushing her body to the very edge of death. With that memory firmly in mind, I took two quick breaths and ran for the grain tower. Slipping past the door just before it shut, I entered the lair of my enemy.

  The ground floor was a dusty mess of tools, buckets, barrels and broken-down carts. The stairs I’d heard the man climbing wound up in a circle that ran along the outer wall of the tower, vanishing into a gap about twenty feet up where the next floor began. I waited at the bottom of the stairs, listening until I could hear the faint sounds of voices above. I closed my eyes and whispered to the sasutzei, ‘I know you’re angry with me, but if you could just tell me where they’re keeping the onyx bracelet, it would be a big help.’

  Nothing. I couldn’t even feel the subtle wavering breeze of her presence.

  Apparently Suzy and I were done.

  Okay, I thought. Simple plans are the best: run up the stairs, kick in the door and blast them before they can get a shield up. From there it’s just a matter of making sure everybody’s good and dead, then find the bracelet.

  I reached into my pouches to touch the powders – a habit I’d got into whenever I needed to make sure I was ready for a fight. My hands came out with grains of powder stuck to the fingertips. I was sweating. This, I’ve learned the hard way, is my body’s way of telling me when I’m about to execute a terrible plan.

  If life were at all fair, Ferius would be here with me and we’d be following her plans, which were invariably stranger – but ultimately better – than my own.

  Well, Ferius isn’t here, I reminded myself. You’re alone. Maybe that’s how it’s meant to be.

  I walked as quietly as I could to the other side of the room. A ladder bolted to the wall travelled up to a hole in the second floor that had to be at least twenty feet from where the voices were coming from. I reached up and grabbed one of the rungs, testing it to make sure it wasn’t rotten all the way through. A broken leg makes for a lousy companion when you’re trying to get the jump on someone.

  The rung felt solid enough. I took my first step, then my second, slowly but surely making my way up the ladder. I stopped just before the hole in the ceiling above me. I couldn’t see any light, which I took as a good sign. I kept climbing until I was high enough to step off onto the first floor. The boards creaked, but not so much that someone would’ve heard it over the sound of their own conversation.

  When I surveyed my surroundings, I found I was at the end of a short corridor with small rooms on either side. Over near the stairs, light seeped from under a crack beneath one of the doors.

  This is it, I thought, fighting and failing to stay calm. The onyx bracelet is in there. The bastards who killed Revian, and will just as happily kill Cressia if it suits their purposes, are waiting for you even if they don’t know it yet. Waiting to see if you’re more than just a dumb kid with a powder spell.

  Among the Jan’Tep, the duel is a sacred thing. How else do you keep any semblance of honour among a people who can use magic to murder their enemies in their sleep? I had grown up in that tradition, believing that to attack a fellow mage without warning was not just craven, but utterly and irredeemably damning to the soul. But if I gave the people in that room a sliver of a chance, they’d kill me without a second thought. After all, I wasn’t a proper Jan’Tep mage. Just a spellslinger.

  Was I ready to do the same? To end their lives without so much as a word of warning?

  I slid my hands into the pouches at my side. My fingers came out dry.

  Damn right I was ready.

  37

  The Quick Draw

  I hadn’t made it two steps when a gloved hand clamped hard around my mouth. Before I could so much as twitch, my assailant’s other arm was around my throat. ‘Foolish little spellslinger,’ the voice whispered, so quiet I might’ve imagined it. ‘Did you think you could enter a mage’s lair unnoticed?’

  I should have struggled, tried some ingenious move to throw off my opponent, but I froze. My tongue tasted bitter as all the fear I’d pushed aside in my rush to attack came down on me like an avalanche.

  The arm didn’t tighten though. It just held me perfectly still. ‘Well, child, where are all your Argosi tricks now?’

  Good question. Think, damn it. Ferius says that when you can’t think your way out of a jam, it’s usually because you’re trying so hard to figure out what to do that you forget to pay attention to what’s going on around you. Okay, so what’s happening here?

  The voice had been menacing. Terrifying. But also elusive somehow. My opponent wasn’t choking me, yet I couldn’t move my head to see anything but the top of the glove. The leather carried a trace of something else … the faint scent of ash from a fire or … smoking reeds.

  Very slowly, I reached up my right hand just over my head and felt behind me. My fingers touched the brim of a hat. ‘Damn it,’ I mumbled into the glove.

  Ferius Parfax chuckled softly, then let me go. She nodded to one of the nearby rooms. I followed her inside, angry and yet so relieved to see her that I almost forgot where we were. ‘Wh
y are you here?’ I asked.

  She reached out and put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Where else would I be, kid?’

  My mouth was unusually dry all of a sudden. Before I could say anything she took her hand away and put a finger to her lips. ‘Stay quiet,’ she said. ‘I ain’t taught you how to whisper properly yet, so just let me do the talking, okay?’

  Ferius was watching me, waiting for a sign that I understood. I nodded my assent. She did likewise, as though we’d just struck some kind of bargain. ‘You were headed in there ready to murder those folks, kid. I saw it in your eyes.’

  I felt both ashamed and annoyed by that. Who was Ferius to accuse me? I was only doing this because she wouldn’t – because her parents had told me it was my job to do the dirty work so she could stay on her path.

  ‘I’m not sayin’ you’re wrong,’ she said softly. ‘Just want to make sure you’re willing to live with the consequences. You don’t know who’s in there. Are you sure you can kill a stranger?’

  A stranger? Whoever was wearing that onyx bracelet had tortured and killed more than once. I’d been there when they’d used Revian as the anchor for an ember spell that burned his family alive, only to then make him turn that same magic on himself. They hadn’t shown him an ounce of mercy, any more than they would Cressia.

  Whoever was in that room? They weren’t strangers to me any more.

  Ferius must have seen something in my gaze, because she gave a slight nod. ‘Okay, kid. Let the cards fall where they may.’

  We stepped back into the corridor, moving as silently as we could on the creaky boards. At the end of the corridor, she reached into her waistcoat and drew her deck of razor-sharp steel cards. She put a hand on my shoulder to signal for me to wait, then she set herself two steps back from the door. I hadn’t quite mastered the art of kicking in doors yet.

  I pulled powder from my pouches – more than was safe. I’d probably come away from this with some nasty burns, but I wasn’t taking any chances. If the red mage was in there, I couldn’t afford to let him get a shield up in time. Ferius was watching me, waiting to make sure I was ready. I locked eyes with her and nodded.