Charmcaster

by Sebastien de Castell

  ‘You’re so stupid, Kellen. You always have been.’

  He moved so fast and so fluidly then that in that brief instant before the ember spell erupted from his fingertips, I knew without a doubt that he could easily have killed me in either of our previous encounters. The explosion that accompanied the strike was so loud I threw my palms against my ears, even though losing my hearing would be the least of my problems. The light was so bright I couldn’t see, and then a second burst, this one even louder, was followed by me being thrown several feet away onto one of the stone benches. I landed hard, the air knocked out of my chest. It took me a moment before I was prepared to consider that I might not actually be dead.

  I got up on my elbows and even that made my head swim. I turned to see red and white flames dancing on the stage. The machines, Janucha and Altariste’s bodies, the dead and dying guards, all of them were gone.

  ‘Where is the bird?’ he asked. My ears were still ringing. I gestured to the stage. ‘You destroyed something beautiful that the world will never see again,’ I lied.

  ‘It’s better this way,’ the red mage said, and turned to walk out the doors of the amphitheatre.

  Slowly I rose to my feet. I went to check on Reichis. He was unharmed and, somehow, still asleep. I picked up the bag and ran after the red mage. ‘Your blast was too powerful to be an experiment gone awry. They’ll know this was Jan’Tep magic.’

  ‘Maybe. Probably. But they’d expect us to have done it anyway, given the tensions between our nations. You should be happy. Their secret police won’t suspect you of destroying their great invention now, given they must know your own magic is too weak to cause this kind of damage.’

  ‘So this is what? All part of the cost of doing business?’

  He stopped outside the doors. I saw the slight shift in the lines of his lacquer mask. He was smiling. ‘You really are naive, you know that?’

  ‘Maybe, but I’m not stupid. You can take the mask off now,’ I said, then added, ‘Panahsi.’

  He didn’t move at first, but then reached up and touched his fingers to the mask. It collapsed into the same red silk as the rest of his garments. He unwound the fabric from his head. ‘Pan’erath,’ he corrected me. His face was thinner than I remembered it, his strong jaw more clearly defined. He was leaner, too, which was why I hadn’t recognised him before. ‘How did you know?’

  I shrugged. ‘The little things. You didn’t just want to kill me, you wanted to beat me. No, that’s not it: you wanted me to know that you could beat me. Then you had the chance to kill Nephenia, but you—’

  ‘It’s your fault,’ he said.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘What Neph’s become. What you turned her into.’

  The way he said it bothered me. ‘There’s nothing wrong with Nephenia.’

  A kind of fury took over his features. ‘You ruined her, Kellen. She was bright and beautiful and could have had a great future with our people, but you poisoned her. You turned her feral.’

  Feral. What an odd choice of word. ‘She made all her own choices, Pan. Her father—’

  His hands clenched. ‘I could have protected her! I told her she just had to put up with it a little while longer, then once we were married, I’d—’

  ‘“Put up with it a while longer”?’ I asked. ‘Is that what you tell yourself?’

  Red and blue light began to slither and wind itself around his forearms. I don’t think he could stop himself from drawing on the magics now. ‘You ruined everything, Kellen. Can’t you see that?’

  However enraged he might be with me, I think I was angrier. Part of me was ready to test my speed against his and the hells for the consequences. But that wouldn’t help anyone, and besides, the only reason I was in such a rage was that I knew he was right. ‘I never meant to hurt anyone. I just wanted to be left alone, to try to make a life for myself. Why is that so wrong?’

  The movement of the raw magics around his forearms slowed and then dissipated. ‘Because that’s not how the world works, Kellen.’ He looked away from me, to the northwest, where, hundreds and hundreds of miles away, the lords magi of our clan were probably plotting their next move. ‘They’ll kill them to get to you, Kellen. Nephenia. That Argosi woman. Anyone who tries to defend you. You’ve evaded them enough times now and they know it’s because you’re so good at getting people to protect you.’

  ‘We protect each other,’ I said.

  He snorted. ‘What was it you asked me earlier? “Is that what you tell yourself?”’ He turned back to me. ‘Your enemies won’t stop coming. When I go back and say I failed, they’ll send someone else. It won’t stop until your friends are dead. They want you alone.’

  ‘Why?’

  He pointed a finger at my face. I didn’t have to guess what he was aiming at. ‘The shadowblack. The lords magi … Kellen, it was your father who ordered me to kill you.’

  Those words struck me like a blow. I didn’t even accuse him of lying, so sure was I in that moment that he was telling the truth.

  ‘The other clans, they’ve agreed to elevate him, Kellen. Your father is going to be mage sovereign of the Jan’Tep people. But they had one condition.’

  ‘He had to be willing to kill me.’

  Pan nodded. ‘And he will too. No matter what else happens, so long as you have the shadowblack, they’ll believe your existence will mean the destruction of our people.’

  ‘Is that what you believe?’

  ‘I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. Unlike you, I know what it means to be Jan’Tep – to be loyal to my people.’

  ‘Then why not kill me?’

  He began re-wrapping the silk around his head. When he completed the last turn, the silk suddenly took shape and became the crimson lacquer mask. Panahsi – Pan’erath – was the red mage once more, and when he spoke next, it was with that distant, ethereal voice. ‘Because she would never forgive me.’

  The bands on his forearms gleamed, his hands twitched in the somatic shape I’d seen him use before. He disappeared, and I was left alone.

  63

  The Shadows

  By the time I got to the Bridge of Dice, Ferius was there with Nephenia and Ishak. Apparently Enna and Durral had managed to find horses belonging to the secret police posted near the mountain. What was more surprising was that they were still in Cazaran.

  ‘It’s done?’ Enna asked me.

  I nodded.

  ‘And the discordance? The bird …’

  ‘Destroyed,’ I replied. ‘There’s nothing left of it. The metals themselves were melted to slag.’ I let the lie hang between us. The Argosi might be wiser than me, but I refused to be part of ridding the world of such a tiny marvel. The bird was the only one of its kind, and none would ever come after it. Let the creature find what joy it could for whatever time it had. To distract Enna, I added, ‘Janucha is dead.’

  The Path of the Rambling Thistle took my hand and kissed it. ‘I’m so sorry, Kellen. No one should be asked to do what I asked of you.’

  I took the card she’d given me – the ‘Path of Shadows’ – from my pocket and handed it to her. ‘I won’t be needing this any more,’ I said.

  Enna hesitated, but then accepted it. She smiled. ‘Durral always says the mark of a true Argosi is never letting anyone choose their path for them.’

  ‘Guess you’ll be heading out?’ Ferius asked her father.

  ‘It’s called the Path of the Rambling Thistle for a reason,’ he replied.

  For a man who clearly loved his daughter, he really was an ill-tempered bastard. He offered Enna his arm and the two of them started along the bridge. But then he stopped. Without turning back he asked, ‘Unless you’d like to have that drink? I hear the booze in this town is terrible, but the company’s not so bad once you get used to it.’

  I don’t know that I could ever describe the look on Ferius’s face. It’s not like she lit up or even cracked a smile. Outwardly she looked as if maybe she hadn’t heard him. But if there
was one true thing Zavera had said to me, it’s that lies start in the eyes. It turned out Ferius wasn’t that good a liar. ‘Well, I suppose I ain’t got nothing better to do,’ she said.

  Under a crescent moon, in a city where our names would no doubt be listed among Gitabria’s most reviled enemies, we celebrated. Even after the hour had grown late, and Enna and Durral had finally taken their leave, the rest of us walked across every one of Cazaran’s eight bridges and sampled just about every delight we could find.

  And why shouldn’t we?

  Ferius, Nephenia, Reichis, Ishak and I had helped stave off a wave of horrors. The five of us had dared to defy the most powerful and devious rulers of two different nations, stared them in the face and brought their plans crumbling down around them. Didn’t we deserve to revel in our victory? To spend a little too much coin, to drink a little too much wine, to stop every once in a while and look at one another and share that very special smile that said that we’d been braver than anyone could ask and luckier than anyone had hoped?

  Of course we deserved to celebrate.

  So we did.

  Gitabria not being the safest place for us any more, we finally made our way out of Cazaran and rode for a travellers’ saloon near the border. Despite the fact that none of us had slept for at least two days, we went on celebrating. I danced with Nephenia, staring at her all the while like I’d only just met her, which was in many ways true. When I stared a little too long, she winked at me as she turned on the dance floor and ran a hand through her hair. ‘Still think it’s too short?’

  ‘It’s perfect,’ I said.

  It was too. I understood that now. I’d been blind before, unable to see the … What was it Ferius likes to call it? The incomparable beauty of imperfection? It wasn’t just her hair either. The sunburned skin, the scars, and even the missing fingers … These weren’t flaws or failings. They were chapters in Nephenia’s story, they were … her.

  So I danced, and I stared, and I said stupid things because they didn’t seem stupid at the time. I danced with Ferius too. It’s even possible that somewhere in there I found myself dancing with Reichis, who was drunker than any of us – even Ishak, who turned out to have quite the taste for booze – and, being a squirrel cat, managed to turn even that into a boast.

  ‘You all right, kid?’ Ferius asked me, when she found me sitting by myself a while later.

  ‘Couldn’t be better,’ I lied.

  She held my gaze a moment longer, as though she were trying to peer through the haze of a sandstorm, but soon she nodded and reached out a hand to pat me on the shoulder. I think it was her way of saying that I was allowed my secrets.

  The weather was fine that night, so we decided to ride away from the saloon and make our beds under the stars for what little darkness was left. Ferius went to sleep first, resting with her hat over her face and snoring preposterously as if to tell us she wouldn’t hear anything. Nephenia smiled at that, and while we both laughed, her fingers lingered in mine just long enough to be an invitation.

  ‘Early start tomorrow,’ I said, pulling away.

  She didn’t miss a beat. ‘Gotta get busy savin’ the world, kid.’

  It was a passable Ferius impression, but I think Reichis does it better. At that precise moment, however, he was locked in a duel with Ishak to see who could snore loudest, and I think he was winning.

  ‘Sleep well, Kellen,’ Nephenia said as she went off to her bedroll.

  ‘Not if I have to listen to all this racket,’ I replied, and made a show of taking my own pack a few yards away from the cacophony.

  I waited an hour or so until I was sure they were all asleep, then quietly collected my things and strapped them to my horse’s saddlebags. I walked him about a hundred yards away, and he obliged me by being about as silent as you can ask a horse to be. In fact, I was making more noise than he was on account of the way I kept sniffling like a lost child. I’d got far enough away from the campsite to ride off, but I couldn’t bring myself to mount up. So I did something then that I never thought I’d do again – not by choice anyway. I walked in shadow.

  Darkness fell on darkness, as if black itself wasn’t black enough for shadow. The stars faded away, one by one. The distant glow of the fire disappeared, leaving me with no light at all, and yet I could see with almost painful clarity. In silence I walked back to our camp to stand before my sleeping friends, a ghost without form or substance, made only of longing and regret. Being lost in shadow was different this time. I could still see Reichis curled up on a patch of brush, his face buried in the thick fur of his tail. But another Reichis raced around the campsite from one spot to another, his eyes frantically searching for threats, his teeth bared to snarl at invisible enemies. He was so full of fear – not for himself, but for the others. He knew there were monsters in this world, but they would not get by him to hurt his pack. Not again.

  ‘Goodbye, squirrel cat,’ I said, though he couldn’t hear me. ‘You were the best business partner I ever had.’

  Ferius tossed and turned even as another version of her stood a few feet away, staring off at the horizon. She looked utterly alone, as she had been for a long time, as she always would be. This was the path she had chosen for herself, the gamble that her life would be worth more to the world as an Argosi wanderer, regardless of the cost to herself.

  ‘I hope you’re right, Ferius, and that all those sacrifices you keep making are worth it. Just don’t forget that the Path of the Wild Daisy is also the path of joy.’

  Ishak, for his part, looked remarkably similar both in the real world and that of shadow. Maybe hyenas just don’t keep as many secrets as other beings. Somehow I doubted it, though.

  I turned to Nephenia last, because I’d needed as much time in shadow as I could so that the growing sense of distance, of isolation, would make walking away from her possible. Her body lay by the fire, shivering despite the heat. I only realised then that she wasn’t used to the cold nights that came with a life on the road, and yet not once in our travels had she complained about it. Her hands twitched as she slept, mirroring the movements of her phantom self, who knelt staring into a pool of water as she cut her hair over and over again with a pair of scissors. Even as each lock of hair fell to the ground, another took its place, and Nephenia kept cutting it. Part of me worried that this was some kind of compulsion. But the longer I watched, the more I understood that this wasn’t mania, but rather an act of defiance – an insistence that Nephenia would be who she chose and never again be controlled by others. Cutting her hair was her way of saying she would be the person she wanted to be and never someone else’s pretty little doll.

  Her physical body shifted in her blankets, pulling them up closer to her chin, then she settled back into deep sleep.

  ‘Goodbye, Nephenia,’ I said at last. ‘I hope you and Ishak will stay with Ferius and Reichis. They could use a good charmcaster to keep an eye out for them.’

  I felt myself fading a little more, and it became harder to see the others. Each time I’d come out of shadow before, it had seemed as if people had forgotten me. When they woke up in the morning, would these strange individuals who’d become my family remember me at all? If they did, I hoped they’d understand why I left. Because they were my family. And like Reichis, I would do anything to protect them. Ferius had taught me that doing the most important thing you can do means making sacrifices, so I’d leave them behind, because, like Nephenia, I could not live with someone else pulling my strings. Pan had been right: as long as I had the shadowblack, the people I loved most would be in danger.

  So I had to find a way to rid myself of it once and for all.

  Alone.

  I stepped out of shadow and stumbled to my knees. I was facing away from my horse, as though my body had started to walk back towards the campsite without me.

  ‘Will you hurry up?’ a chittering voice said from behind me. ‘I’m getting bored here.’

  I turned to find Reichis in his customary spot
on my horse’s neck, staring up at the sky with his front paws crossed over his furry belly. ‘How did you—’

  ‘Squirrel cat, remember?’ he said. ‘We don’t fall for any shadowblack nonsense. Besides, you and me are business partners.’ He reached a paw behind his head to prod the little velvet bag holding his trinkets. ‘The way I figure it, you still owe me three heists before our contract is up.’

  ‘Reichis, I …’

  ‘Hey,’ he said, tilting his head to stare at me with those beady little eyes of his. ‘You remember that time I bit off a chunk of your ear and we ended up having to go get Ferius to sew it back onto your head?’

  ‘Um … No. That never happened.’

  ‘Really? Because I’m pretty sure I remember it.’ He hopped up from the horse’s neck and then took a couple of quick steps across its back before jumping onto my shoulder. He whispered in my ear, ‘It was right after that time you tried to leave me behind with two – two – skinbag females and a hyena. A hyena, Kellen!’

  ‘Reichis … where I’m going … I mean, I don’t even know where I’m going, but I know it’s going to be someplace bad. I can’t—’

  ‘You reckon there’s going to be danger?’ he asked.

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘Dark and powerful mages?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Maybe even a few demons?’

  ‘I—’

  He swivelled his head towards me and gave me an evil grin. ‘Because I haven’t murdered any demons yet, and I really think it’s time I gave it a try, don’t you?’

  I hesitated for a long while as he kept his eyes locked on mine. Usually I can win a staring contest with the little bugger, but not tonight. Then it occurred to me that I really didn’t want to. I walked over and mounted our horse, Reichis still perched on my shoulder. I gave the horse a gentle squeeze and we set off at a slow walk towards the main road.