Don’t show fear. Show them arta valar. I briefly considered one of Reichis’s usual retorts, but this didn’t seem like the time to talk about eating people’s eyeballs.
‘Hey, kid,’ Ferius called out.
I couldn’t even turn my head to see her. ‘Yeah?’ I asked, with all the casual indifference possible for someone whose voice is barely a squeak.
‘I ever show you my favourite summoning spell?’
Her question made Dal’ven throw up his hands to conjure a shield against an attack that wasn’t coming. ‘Don’t be a fool,’ Hath’emad said. ‘This is what the Argosi do: they talk and talk and talk, hoping to use their words to delay and deceive. They have no magic.’
Ferius made a ‘tut-tut’ sound. ‘You know, the kid says that all the time, and I keep having to prove him wrong. Like this, see?’ She pursed her lips and let out a piercing whistle so loud I thought my ears would rupture. It carried through the hole in the outer wall to the street outside. A second later we all heard the tower door, followed by heavy boot heels running across the lower floor and then up the stairs. Lots of boot heels.
‘That there,’ Ferius said casually, almost seeming to rest against Hath’emad’s binding spell, ‘is a contingent of the Gitabrian secret police. They have a more respectable name, I’m told, but make no mistake, they have a nasty disposition – especially towards spies and assassins who sneak into their country and try to kill their favourite contraptioneer.’
More than a dozen men and women crowded outside the room. They wore leather armour covered in thin copper-coloured plates I’d never seen before. About half bore tall shields covered in sigils that I recognised as wards against spellcraft. Others gripped long iron tubes with both hands, aiming them at the mages.
‘Those funny sticks are called fire lances,’ Ferius said to me. ‘They kind of do what your little powder spell does, only the results ain’t quite so pretty.’
Hath’emad dropped the steel card and stepped away from me, his left hand conjuring an iron shield spell that wrapped around him while his right drew on ember magic. Without so much as a word of warning, a young woman twisted the two halves of her fire lance in opposite directions. A blue spark at their meeting point was followed by a deafening roar of thunder. Smoke and fire exploded from the front end of the fire lance.
My eyes blinked back tears and my ears rang. I felt Hath’emad’s binding spell slip away, and turned just in time to see a hole in his chest that let the lantern light behind him shine right through before he fell to the floor.
The fire lances and spell-shields moved aside to let a figure come through the smoke and enter the room. I saw the dark curly hair draping to the black epaulettes on her uniform before the early morning sun entering through the hole I’d blasted in the wall illuminated her features. ‘Visitors of the Jan’Tep territories,’ she began, ‘I am Servadi Zavera té Drazo. It is my privilege to formally welcome you to Gitabria, and my duty to inform you that you are now my prisoners.’
It was an impressive entrance. Ferius didn’t seem to care. ‘Damn it, Zavera,’ she said, shaking off the last effects of Hath’emad’s binding spell. ‘We had a deal.’
The Gitabrian spymaster – for I was certain that’s what Zavera really was – ignored Ferius and went to stand over the mage’s smouldering corpse. ‘We agreed no unnecessary deaths. Perhaps you should have persuaded the mage not to attack us.’
‘Those fancy shields of yours would’ve protected you from his magic and you know it!’
Zavera looked around the room, barely taking notice of me despite our previous acquaintance. ‘I allowed you the first opportunity to deal with the conspirators, Argosi. I’d hoped to avoid intervening and thus setting off what will no doubt be a series of arduous and long-winded diplomatic exchanges with the Jan’Tep arcanocracy. As you have failed to fulfil your part of the bargain, you can hardly hold me to mine.’
Shalla, in a remarkable display of poise given the unhealthy pallor that had come over her face, spoke in tones that conveyed only the mildest disappointment in what had transpired. ‘Servadi Drazo, I am Magiziera Shalla fal Ke, delegate of the Jan’Tep—’
‘I know who you are, magiziera.’ Without even deigning to look at Shalla, the spymaster reached out a hand and grabbed my sister’s arm, raising it up and almost lifting her off the floor. Zavera removed the onyx bracelet from Shalla’s wrist and tossed it to me. ‘I assume you know what to do with this?’
I caught it in the air and examined it only briefly before placing it on the floor so I could crush it under my boot.
‘Kellen, don’t destroy it!’ Shalla called out to me.
I rested my heel against the bracelet. ‘You think I’d ever allow this foul thing to be used again?’
‘You don’t understand! The Gitabrian girl has had the worm inside her too long. If you shatter the bracelet, the shock could kill her. Use the bracelet to draw out the worm from her eye instead. There’s less risk to her and it won’t be nearly as painful.’
I knelt down and retrieved the onyx bracelet. The part of the obsidian worm that had been split from the one in Cressia’s eye slithered inside the glimmering stones as if it were swimming in oil.
‘Kellen, please trust me. Not everything is the way it appears. You know you can just as easily destroy the bracelet after you’ve cured the girl.’ Without waiting for any reply from me, she turned back to Zavera. ‘I am the Jan’Tep delegate, servadi. Our two peoples share long-standing diplomatic traditions. You cannot arrest me without first severing my status as their representative, which requires prior notification to the councils of lords magi. How do you think the Jan’Tep will respond when they learn you took me prisoner like some street urchin caught stealing bread?’
Zavera signalled to two of her officers. They brought forth a pair of thick copper shackles wound in layer upon layer of thin spell wire and clamped them around Shalla’s forearms. ‘You are not being arrested, delegati. Merely detained in a guest house we reserve for those of your lofty rank.’
‘No,’ Shalla whispered. ‘Please, don’t take me to Notia Veras.’
‘You Jan’Tep,’ the spymaster said, finally allowing a measure of disdain to break through her otherwise implacable expression, ‘you think you are so very special because of your little magics. Always threatening. Always looking down on my people. What is it you call us? “Tinkers and traders”? Perhaps we are, but we are also explorers and scientists. Those things we understand least compel us most to seek out answers. Those bands you have imprinted on your arms as children, they are wondrous. Beyond our ability to comprehend or reproduce. That is why we have worked so very hard to find a way to counter them.’
Dal’ven, kneeling by Hath’emad’s corpse, looked up with a desperate panic in his eyes. Nothing horrifies a Jan’Tep mage more than the prospect of being denied their magics. Still, I had to admire his defiance when he shouted, ‘Those foul restraints will not long hold me, Gitabrian! This I swear: you will suffer more than you imagined possible once I am free.’
Zavera turned to Ferius. ‘You see the kind of threats I am forced to deal with?’ She sighed. ‘Still, the lords mercantile long ago warned me that service to one’s homeland required sacrifice.’
‘Don’t,’ Ferius warned. ‘The boy’s all talk. Just a lot of hot air, that’s all.’
‘Hot air? An apt choice of words for an Argosi. After all, what follows the Way of Wind? Ah, I remember now.’ Zavera’s hand whipped past Dal’ven’s neck. ‘The Way of Thunder, is it not?’
I hadn’t even seen her draw the blade from the cuff of her coat. Blood began to gush from Dal’ven’s throat, spilling down his robes to pool on the floor.
‘No!’ Ferius shouted. ‘I said no more killing!’ She launched herself at Zavera.
The guard next to me started to raise up her fire lance. I rammed my shoulder into her and pulled powder in the hope I could use the blast to distract the others while Ferius took out Zavera. I was just about to toss
them when the spymaster shouted, ‘Drop the powder or she dies!’
I turned and saw something that froze the blood in my veins.
Since the day I’d first met her, I’d witnessed Ferius Parfax square off against mages, soldiers, bully-boys and just about everything else you could imagine. I’d seen her outnumbered and out-powered. The one thing I’d never seen was someone get the drop on her.
Zavera had one arm wrapped around Ferius’s neck. In her other hand she held a blade so thin it looked like a long needle. The tip was pressed against Ferius’s temple. ‘The master contraptioneer of Gitabria was most insistent that I not break anything of yours that she could not herself repair,’ the spymaster said without a trace of ire. ‘I would prefer to keep my word.’
I let the powders drop to the floor.
The spymaster let go of Ferius. I could see the twitch of my Argosi mentor’s hands that meant she was about to make a move. Apparently Zavera did too, because she dropped the needle and drove her fist into Ferius’s lower back, right at the spot where she’d been so badly injured in the desert, then slapped the edge of her hand into her throat. Ferius dropped to the floor, gagging.
Zavera pulled back her foot, ready to drive it into Ferius’s stomach, an eagerness in her eyes that told me once she started, she wouldn’t stop.
I said something stupid then. ‘She’s not like you.’
The spymaster looked over at me, foot still raised, mild curiosity in her gaze. ‘No?’
I shook my head. ‘No matter what you do to her, Ferius won’t come after you. She won’t try to hurt you or get retribution for what you’ve done.’
‘And you, spellslinger? Will you one day seek me out and get revenge for what I’ve done to your mentor?’
I breathed in, slowly, and closed my eyes. I thought back to where every person in the room had been standing. Zavera, Ferius, Shalla, the officers with spell-shields and the ones with fire lances. I worked out who was close to me, who had a weapon aimed at me, and what I’d need to do to get one good shot in before they got me. When I opened my eyes I said, ‘Touch her again and I won’t wait that long.’
‘Kid, don’t,’ Ferius coughed.
I kept my eyes on Zavera, who looked not in the least bit afraid of me. ‘A killer then,’ she said, and stepped over Ferius to walk towards me.
Shalla absurdly rushed to me, the copper restraints around her forearms banging against my wrists as she took my hands. ‘Please, brother, don’t do anything foolish!’ She dropped to her knees and cried even as she clung to me. ‘I don’t want you to die, Kellen!’
Zavera chuckled at this, and either came to her senses or decided whatever she’d been planning to do to me could just as easily wait until later. ‘Now, now, magiziera,’ she said, grabbing Shalla by the shoulders and hoisting her to her feet. ‘Let us retain as much of our dignity as we can. You, after all, are the chief trade delegate of the Jan’Tep people. Do not weep and wail like a street urchin caught stealing bread.’
‘They’re taking me to Notia Veras,’ Shalla said to me. ‘Get word to our father, Kellen. Please. You don’t know what they do to mages there!’
The spymaster smiled at me as if we were old friends. ‘Our business is concluded for now, spellslinger. I imagine Credara Janucha zal Ghassan would be most grateful if you could make all speed to her residence and free her daughter from the creature your people put inside her. On the other hand, if you would prefer to challenge me …’
I put up my hand, still holding the onyx bracelet. ‘I’ll help Cressia.’
Zavera nodded, and led her squad out of the building, hauling Shalla along with them and leaving me feeling like even less of a human being than I had before this had all started. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t wanted to put up a fight for Shalla. It’s just that I was too busy sliding the card she’d snuck me into the cuff of my sleeve.
THE GAZE
Be wary of the discordance cards you place within your deck. There are others besides the Argosi who paint symbols of change. Their purposes are not ours and the cards they create can be dangerous. Gaze too long upon them and you may soon find something staring right back at you.
41
The Missing Question
It occurred to me, as Ferius and I spent the better part of the early morning hours stumbling our way through the warehouse district on the way back to the city centre, that every time one of my brilliant plans fell apart, someone handed me a card as if to say, ‘I told you so.’
The Mechanical Bird. The Contraptioneer. The Path of Shadows. The Crowned Mage.
I was getting sick of discordance cards.
‘That ain’t no discordance, kid,’ Ferius insisted, handing me back the card. For about the tenth time she tried taking a drag from the smoking reed hanging from her mouth that she still hadn’t lit. Even that small act made her wince. It hurt when she walked; it hurt when she tried to take a deep breath. Not even that perpetual swagger of hers could hide how badly she was injured. Watching her pretend for my sake that she was okay made me feel even worse. If I hadn’t messed up in that tower – if I hadn’t let the shadowblack take me over for the brief second it took to ruin everything – Ferius would have kept the situation under control. She wouldn’t have had to signal for the secret police. She wouldn’t have almost been beaten to death by that crazy Gitabrian spymaster. Enna’s words on the Forest Bridge echoed in my mind: ‘How many times has my daughter nearly died saving your life?’
‘M’fine, kid,’ she mumbled. ‘Quit starin’ at me like I’m a glass vase teetering off a table.’
She hadn’t even turned to look at me so I had no idea how she could tell.
Since making a fuss or trying to get her to rest wouldn’t do any good, I turned my attention to the card itself. ‘How do you know it’s not a discordance?’
She answered with a question of her own. ‘What do you see?’
A gleaming crown held aloft by a pair of wooden hands; the six symbols representing the principal forms of Jan’Tep magic floating around it like fireflies. At the bottom of the card, in black ink, the words The Crowned Mage. I didn’t bother telling her any of that of course, since she’d just respond with some nonsense like, ‘Don’t describe the card … Tell me what’s missing.’ Some conversations with Ferius you can pretty much just have by yourself.
We stepped onto the wide deck of the Arch of Solace. I briefly hoped Ferius intended to get medical treatment from one of the physicians standing on their little platforms as morning crowds vied for their attention, but given that she kept snorting at them as we walked past, my optimism soon faded. Focus on the card, I told myself. If nothing else, it would keep me from passing out from exhaustion before we arrived at Janucha’s home and I could get that damned obsidian worm out of Cressia’s eye. Okay. What’s wrong with this card?
The image itself was beautifully rendered: the crown painted in metallic gold inks, the flickering symbols coloured to match those of the Jan’Tep form of magic they represented. The wooden hands holding the crown were perfectly formed. There was nothing odd or abstract about the card. In fact, if anything it was easier to interpret than the other discordances I’d seen. Those always had vague aspects to them – lines that weren’t quite straight or colours that weren’t quite right, like the painter hadn’t been sure of … Oh.
‘There you go,’ Ferius said, still looking ahead.
‘There aren’t any questions.’ Now that I’d said it out loud, it seemed even more obvious. The card was almost glaringly precise in its depiction of the crown and the scene around it.
‘And what are the Argosi all about?’ Ferius asked.
Questions. Every encounter I’d ever had with an Argosi always raised more questions than answers. ‘Okay, so it’s not a discordance. Chances are it was made by someone in the Jan’Tep territories. So why would my sister, in her last act of freedom before being carted away by the secret police, choose to give me this card?’
Ferius smiled for the first ti
me since we’d left the tower. ‘See? Now that’s a good question.’
Occasionally I find her enigmatic ways endearing. This wasn’t one of those times. ‘Fine. Since you’re in a mood for questions, how about this one? Did you know Shalla was in that tower?’
‘What’s that, kid?’ Her attention was suddenly drawn to an apothecary’s stand in the middle of the bridge. ‘Say, you think this fella might sell smoking reeds?’
‘Don’t change the subject. You got to that tower before I did – and I’d like to know how, precisely, since I was following the black threads that you couldn’t have seen.’
‘That’s cos I’ve got something even better.’ She rapped her knuckles on the top of my hat. ‘A brain in my head. You should try usin’ yours more often.’
Her condescension didn’t mix well with my frustration. ‘What’s that supposed to—’ I stopped myself. Yet again I was about to fall for Ferius’s favourite trick of aggravating me until I forgot the question I needed answered.
I glared at her. She grinned back at me. ‘Guess that one won’t work on you no more.’ Her right hand slapped the underside of the brim of my hat, causing it to flip in the air and land right back down on my head. ‘Ah, kid. I could make such an Argosi out of you. I swear, the world wouldn’t know what hit it.’
‘Really?’
She nodded, the smile becoming something more serious. ‘What we do, Kellen, this wandering life, following the Way of Wind? Searching for discordances that could change the world – hopefully for the better, but sometimes in a direction so much worse it keeps me up at night just thinking about it? Well, there aren’t a hundred people on this continent who can do what we do.’
‘And you’re saying I’m one of them?’ Even before Enna had tried to convince me I could never be Ferius’s teysan, I’d pretty much given up hope. ‘Most of the time it seems like you think I’m doing something wrong, or thinking something wrong, or that I’m just built wrong.’
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