Charmcaster

by Sebastien de Castell

  ‘Yeah, why?’

  He shook his head. ‘You skinbags really like to overcomplicate things, don’t you?’ The squirrel cat turned his attention back to the silver floor. ‘Bet this is worth a pretty penny though. All we have to do is dig some of it out.’ He extended the claws of his right paw and reached out to it.

  ‘Reichis, don’t!’

  The moment he tried to scratch it he was sent flying through the air. His body hit the wall behind us with a thud before he tumbled to the ground. I ran to him and picked him up. His fur was sticking out wildly, making him look like a puffy flower. Oddly, he was completely clean now. ‘Reichis, are you all right?’

  He looked up at me, his eyes unfocused. ‘That was different,’ he said.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Lightning,’ he replied, his voice filled with awe. ‘These Gitabrian skinbags have dominion over lightning. We must bow to them, Kellen. They’re clearly gods!’ It’s possible he hit his head when he slammed into the wall.

  I looked back at the wheels turning just outside the silver passageway. ‘They aren’t gods,’ I said. ‘I think somehow those wheels are generating some sort of build-up of energy. When your paw touched the floor, it passed into you.’

  Reichis crawled up to my shoulder and shook himself off again. ‘Well, I hate lightning, so you step on it next time.’

  I went back to examine the heavy wheels. ‘If we could stop these from turning …’ I put my weight against one of them, but even though the flow of water that made it turn wasn’t very strong, the wheel itself was far too powerful for me to hold back. It must have had something to do with all the little gears they were connected to. ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘how come the wardens can get by here?’

  ‘Because they’re gods?’ Reichis suggested. ‘They just command—’

  ‘They’re not gods,’ I insisted.

  ‘Hey, don’t take it out on me just because you’re upset that the Gitabrians are better at magic than your people are.’

  ‘They aren’t,’ I said, though I really wasn’t sure at this point. ‘What they do is different. Anyway, I doubt the wardens are mages.’

  Reichis tapped a paw at a spot on the wall. ‘Well, then maybe they stick a key inside this opening.’

  I stared where he was pointing. There was nothing there, just bare wall. ‘I don’t see anything.’

  ‘What, are you blind?’ He tapped the spot again. ‘This little spot here is clearly more worn than the rest of the wall, and the shape and size is like a lock.’

  Not knowing what else to try, I started spinning the sotocastra coin. ‘Show me.’

  The squirrel cat pointed with a claw at the spot on the wall and peered into it. ‘Simple three-tumbler lock, but it’s way too deep inside for me to pick.’

  I still couldn’t see any difference on the surface, but when I spun the coin above my palm a little further back from the wall, I started feeling that subtle tug, as if it had latched onto something. It took a few minutes, but eventually Reichis claimed all three tumblers had turned. The wheels started slowing down and after a few more revolutions came to a stop.

  I plucked a hair from my head and carefully touched it to the silver floor. When it didn’t shock me, I started through the passage.

  ‘Hey,’ Reichis said, when we got to an intersection on the other side. ‘I haven’t explored this part yet. You think maybe down here is where they keep the good stuff?’

  ‘We’re looking for my sister, remember?’

  ‘Oh … right.’

  When I looked back and saw he was still sitting there, staring down the other hall, I asked, ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘It’s just …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, it’s not like your sister’s going anywhere, is she?’

  Ancestors, I thought, going over to grab him and stick him on my shoulder before setting off towards where I hoped to find Shalla. If I ever need to be rescued by a squirrel cat, please make sure it’s not somewhere with shiny objects.

  48

  The Cell

  We found Shalla at the bottom level of the prison. Evidently she was considered a lot more dangerous than the few other prisoners we came across, which really said something. She even rated an actual guard all to herself. Reichis offered to deal with him, but I wasn’t sure I could trust the squirrel cat not to kill the poor bastard who, after all, was only doing his job. Of course, blasting the guy with my spell probably wouldn’t make him happy either.

  I saw he had a fire lance with him – the sort I’d seen other Gitabrian secret police carry back at the tower. That might be a problem.

  ‘Hello,’ I said.

  The guard stood up, his left hand reaching for his mace. ‘Who are you? How did you get here?’

  ‘I’m an outlaw,’ I admitted. ‘And I’m here for a jailbreak.’

  ‘I thought you said this was a prison?’ Reichis chittered on my shoulder.

  ‘Shut up, stupid.’

  The guard’s face took on a fierce expression. I think he was more outraged that he thought I’d called him stupid than he was over me coming here to break out a prisoner. ‘Best you kneel, son. Let me put the cuffs on you and then we can find the servadi to see what this is all about. I’d rather not have to kill you.’

  ‘Me too,’ I said. ‘So it would be helpful if you could just let me put the cuffs on you instead.’

  His jaw tightened. ‘So be it. Fair warning was given, and my conscience is clear.’

  He hefted up his fire lance and aimed it at me. Reichis leaped onto the end of it, knocking his aim way off. When he twisted the two halves, the blast went off to the side. I pulled powder from my pouches and tossed them into the air between us. ‘Carath,’ I intoned, my fingers forming the somatic shapes.

  I hadn’t used much powder so the twin red and black fires didn’t burn through the leather armour covering his chest. The shock of it did make him stumble back hard enough to bash his head into the steel bars of Shalla’s cell. The look of surprise lasted only a second before his eyes fluttered closed and he sank to the floor.

  ‘Better get the cuffs on him quick,’ Reichis advised.

  ‘Why? I just knocked him unconscious.’

  The squirrel cat sniffed. ‘He’s just stunned and closing his eyes to make you think he’s unconscious while he tries to regain his wits.’

  Wow. You can’t trust anyone these days. Anyway, Reichis was right. I barely got the guard’s cuffs on him before he started thrashing at me. He was a big man, so even handcuffed he was a bit of a threat. That’s where Reichis took over. ‘Listen, skinbag,’ he snarled in the man’s ear. ‘It’s been days since I drank human blood, and I’m getting thirsty.’ He reached out a claw to very gently touch the corner of the man’s eye. ‘Hungry too.’

  The guard couldn’t understand him of course, but I guess he got the gist of it because he stopped trying to shake us off. I managed to push him into an open cell nearby and lock it using the warden’s coin. It really was remarkable, all you could do with this thing. No wonder the secret police weren’t fond of the castradazi.

  When I was done, I returned to Shalla’s cell.

  ‘You really didn’t need to go to all this trouble,’ my younger sister said. Her cell had reasonably nice furnishings, all things considered, and Shalla, seated in a chair, reading a book, managed to look as if she were lounging in her private sanctum instead of wallowing in prison waiting for the guards who’d escort her to what would surely be slow torture followed by a swift execution.

  ‘Is this the part where you pretend I didn’t save you?’ I asked.

  She shrugged. ‘Oh, I suppose now’s as good a time to leave as any.’ She rose from the chair and gave a scathing glance at the walls. ‘Do you know, they seem to have infused the walls with some of that Gitabrian copper that prevents magic from working? It’s really rather annoying.’

  ‘So we’re agreed that I did save you?’ The point felt important to me.

 
‘It’s not really a rescue until I’m out of the cell, wouldn’t you agree?’ She gestured towards the door’s locking mechanisms, of which there were two. The first was a regular lock near the centre of the bars, and another was high up – a rotating cylinder combination lock near the ceiling. ‘The guards informed me that both locks have to be opened at once or else a glass tube inside the locks breaks and a fast-acting poison gas is released.’

  I motioned for Reichis. He sauntered over, sniffed at Shalla before giving her a brief snarl, then clambered up the bars to start turning the rotating tumblers on the lock at the ceiling while I set to work using the sotocastra coin on the one in the door. ‘Ready to turn the last one,’ he said, far sooner than I was.

  A couple of minutes later I was ready to flip the last tumbler in mine. ‘Count of three?’ I suggested.

  ‘Sure. Three.’ His claw turned the last cylinder and it was only by sheer luck that I managed to flip my own lock’s tumbler in time. ‘Remind me to explain how counting works some time,’ I said.

  ‘Whatever.’

  I held open the door for Shalla, who actually took the time to dog-ear the page of her book before setting it down on the small cot and leaving the cell. ‘I admit, that was a little impressive,’ she said.

  ‘I do my best,’ I said.

  ‘I meant the squirrel cat.’

  49

  The Confession

  With a new moon lighting the way, the three of us escaped back into the woods and then along the trail where we met up with Ferius, Nephenia and Ishak. The three of them had kept abreast of the few patrols in the area and picked out the best route for us to get back to the city gates, where we’d send Shalla on her way. Given that for once nothing had gone wrong and no one had been hurt, I’d expected everyone to be overjoyed.

  The moment we were in relative safety, Shalla turned on Nephenia. ‘You should know, exile, that in deference to my brother’s presence I’ve decided not to kill you.’

  ‘Wait, what?’ I asked. ‘What are you talking—’

  ‘I’d be within my rights,’ Shalla went on, ignoring me. ‘You may have … persuaded the council to be lenient with you, but no one would blame me if I executed you here and now.’

  The way she said ‘persuaded’ gave the word a distinctly salacious implication.

  ‘You’d be within your rights to try,’ Nephenia said, reaching into a pocket of her coat. ‘But perhaps not your right mind.’ Ishak’s growl added a note of menace to her words.

  ‘What in the name of sand and sorrow is the matter with you Jan’Tep?’ Ferius asked me wearily. ‘Seems anytime two of you get together, somebody’s got to threaten murder.’

  I got between Shalla and Nephenia. ‘Nobody’s killing anyone! What the hell is—’

  ‘Too late for that,’ Shalla said. ‘Mouse girl here is a murderer.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, hasn’t she told you?’ Shalla rounded on me like an advocate about to deliver her final argument before the court. ‘Shall I perform a testimony spell for you, Kellen?’ The glyphs of the silk band on her forearm shimmered to life. ‘Would you like to fill your mind with visions of the condition in which we found the corpse of Eld’reth?’

  Eld’reth? That was the name of Nephenia’s father.

  ‘Would you like to see the pieces of him that had to be collected from the walls of his sanctum after her spell was done with him?’ Without asking my permission, Shalla did just that.

  ‘Stop!’ I said, reeling from the visions of blood and charred human flesh she put in my mind.

  ‘If we’re going to all this trouble,’ Nephenia said, ‘perhaps I should demonstrate the spell itself.’

  ‘Okay, this is getting interesting now,’ Reichis chittered, wandering over to stare up first at Shalla then Nephenia. ‘I think they might just kill each other.’

  Try as I might, I couldn’t even begin to wrap my head around the idea that Nephenia had murdered her father. The words she’d spoken when we’d been following the black threads came back to me with a disturbing new clarity: ‘I’m not the girl you knew,’ she’d said. ‘I did some things that … I had to make a choice.’

  ‘Now you know,’ Shalla said triumphantly. ‘You know what she is.’

  I wondered why it was so important to her to ruin Nephenia in my eyes – why Shalla always had to seed distrust against anyone who wasn’t part of our family.

  ‘I am a murderer,’ Nephenia confessed, her chin held high. ‘A fact you should keep in mind the next time you threaten me.’

  My sister smiled, her hands relaxed by her sides. ‘Come on then, mouse girl. Show me.’

  Ishak bared his teeth but didn’t growl. Somehow that made him scarier.

  Reichis – usually keen to see violence – scampered up to my shoulder and snarled at all of them. ‘You better pick which one you’re going to help kill the other, Kellen, because these lunatics really are about to fight.’

  ‘She already told me what happened,’ I lied.

  ‘Don’t fight my battles for me, Kellen,’ Nephenia snapped at me.

  ‘Either pick a side or let’s get out of here,’ the squirrel cat insisted. ‘One of them’s going to make a move any second now!’

  ‘Please,’ I begged, ‘both of you, just let me—’

  ‘Shh …’ Shalla said quietly. ‘I’m concentrating.’

  The pair of them were facing off now, closer than any sane Jan’Tep mage would stand for a duel because they’d end up within the blast of whatever assault spells they cast against each other. With no other solution in sight, I was about to throw myself between them when Ferius said, ‘The problem with too much focus on the destination, girls, is that you miss a lot of the scenery.’

  I hadn’t even seen her hands move, but in each one she held a steel card, the sharp edge glimmering in the dim light of the street lantern. They were positioned a hair’s breadth from the corners of Shalla and Nephenia’s mouths. ‘The first one of you tries to utter one of your Jan’Tep incantations is going to get their tongues sliced up real good.’ Without shifting her eyes, she said to me, ‘Kid? One day you are going to explain to me just what it is they put in the water where you come from that makes folks so homicidal.’

  Nephenia was the first to back away, which was good, because I’m pretty sure Shalla was just arrogant enough to believe she might be able to outdraw Ferius Parfax. It took a few seconds, but eventually my sister decided she had better things to do than get in a mage’s duel in the middle of a foreign city. ‘I withdraw my prerogative to render judgement on the exile,’ she said, then, because she’s Shalla, she added, ‘For now.’

  She started to walk away, and I thought maybe that was it – my sister would leave the city and return to our homeland – but she gestured for me to follow. ‘A word, please, brother? There’s something you should know about my mission here before you decide to commit another act of treason.’

  Not knowing what else to do, I followed Shalla a few dozen yards away. Even though we weren’t in hearing range of the others, I saw her fingers flicker a somatic shape as she whispered a word, then took my hand. It was a silencing spell that would make it impossible for anyone to eavesdrop on us. Knowing Shalla, she’d probably added the second form of the spell, that would confound anyone trying to read our lips. ‘You’re on the wrong side, Kellen,’ she said at last.

  I almost laughed at that. ‘This again? After all this time, you still can’t come up with anything better than “just do what Father wants and don’t ask questions”? Or do you have some new offer to make me? Father’s forgiveness perhaps? A chance to go home? Shalla, I’m not Jan’Tep any more. I don’t want to be.’

  A trace of hurt came to her eyes when she looked up at me, but she quickly banished it. ‘Are you done?’ she asked. ‘Or do you need to rant and rage against the unfairness of the world a little longer before you listen to what I have to say?’

  It is a distinctly unpleasant experience to be upbraided by your little sis
ter, made worse when she tries to make you feel like you’re a pouting child. Especially if it works. ‘Tell me,’ I said.

  She looked around at the streets with their beautiful geometry and the almost unearthly lighting of the street lanterns, their positioning and illumination calculated with mathematical precision by Gitabrian artificers to give perfect clarity to the evening setting without offending the eye. ‘They’re brilliant, these Gitabrians, aren’t they?’

  ‘That’s what you wanted to tell me?’

  She ignored me. ‘They love invention, these little men and women with their numbers and their theories. This nation of tinkerers, of pot-makers.’

  ‘If that’s all they were, you wouldn’t be here spying on them.’

  Shalla nodded. ‘You’re right – I wouldn’t.’ She squeezed my hand. ‘Kellen, I came here to uncover what the Gitabrians are planning with this new invention of theirs – this combination of mechanical genius with frontier charmcasting and whatever final piece gives the machine life.’

  ‘Janucha’s not trying to—’

  ‘Don’t be naive! Sooner or later the contraptioneer will use this new ability of hers to design weapons for her people. She will create machines of war.’ Shalla hesitated a moment, then, even though we were within a quieting spell, still she whispered what came next. ‘They could destroy us, Kellen.’

  There was such certainty in her voice, such a sense of foreboding, that it took me aback. ‘That’s … Shalla, the Gitabrians don’t want war. They’re explorers, like you said. Traders and tinkerers. They invent new things because it’s what they love to do, it’s how they think, how their culture works.’

  She looked up at me with an almost indulgent smile. ‘I forget sometimes just how idealistic you are, Kellen. And how gullible.’

  ‘That’s too bad, because I never forget how manipulative you are, Shalla.’ I pulled my hand away from hers, breaking the spell. ‘If you have proof, show it, otherwise this is just another game you’re playing … Or worse, one that our father is playing through you.’