by Tia Reed
Her guards strove to keep pace as she exited the hectic triangle around the temple, misinterpreting her determined step as the need to stave off grief. Along the narrowing roads they wound, north to the crumbling stone dwellings and cracked cobbles of the old quarter, where the shadow of Faradil Forest tainted the twisting alleys. The narrow-fronted shop she sought hid between two vendors so nondescript she could not recall their wares, its crude, wooden sign helping to disguise the treasure house. After a brief moment to affect her sardonic persona, Jordayne pulled up the hood of her white mourning cloak, and gave a vigorous push to the door of Weng Wu’s Eastern Emporium, ensuring the bell above it clanged.
“I have outgrown the need for nannies,” she said to the guards, who had stepped too close. She had no tolerance for her sergeant’s protests. “Go petition the Shah if you wish to override my command,” she said, and shut the door in his face.
The interior was a chaotic shamble of eastern ornaments adrift in a heady haze of sweet-smelling incense. Flawless forgeries of ancient jade dragons vied for room on the splintering wooden shelves with painted porcelain vases and scrolls of parchment inked with artistic oriental script. Jordayne arched an eyebrow at the exorbitant price tags. A genuine artefact would have struggled to fetch the sum. Rummaging among the odds and ends, she waited for someone to attend her. When the inner door creaked open, she presented her back, pretending to scrutiny of baskets full of dried berries, hairy spider legs and fragmenting snakeskin.
“You want elixir to drown your sorrows? Or potion to stave off spirits?” a husky voice asked. “I give you good price.”
Drawing down her hood, she turned. “Nothing so mundane,” she said.
The little oriental man with white, shoulder-length hair, legs as bowed as the walls of the temple, and skin so thin his veins tinged him blue frowned. Together with his displeased tightening of his lips, it was a most satisfying expression. Then he cracked a smile and held up a finger. A long nail spiralled past his nose. “You want jade carving to match birthday present for Shah.”
“Not this time,” she said. “Certainly not without an expert in ancient eastern artefacts to verify your claims of authenticity.”
“Lady, all genuine, all good,” Weng Wu said. His bushy white brows drew together as he affected a hurt tone. The expression was comical on one so aged, so otherwise distinguished in features and manner.
“Then let’s move inside and discuss the price. I can always have you arrested later for fraud. You might have heard the heir to the throne has adopted a tough stance with foreign crooks,” she replied, picking up a jade dragon.
His shrewd eyes narrowed. Dropping all pretext of a slick salesman, he said, in a deeper, respectful voice, “Why you come here? Cannot oblige if don’t know reason.”
“I want to know what you were doing at the hospice last night.”
“Legs bad,” he said, tucking his hands into his wide sleeves and dropping his eyes. The painful curve of his thighs stretched the moon and stars embroidered all over his blue silk gown, but the momentary pursing of his lips gave him away.
“I do not appreciate being played for a fool.”
“Why you think I lie?”
Jordayne dropped the dragon. It smashed into sharp, green shards.
The door burst open and Rokan tumbled through. “Are you hurt, my Lady?”
“I asked you to wait outside,” she said, her eyes not leaving the unperturbed face of the merchant. If that was what he was.
The door clicked shut. “Your lack of reaction is why,” she said, continuing as though there had been no interruption.
The old man shuffled to the door, opened it far enough to slip a neat sign with “closed” carved on it outside, then shut it again. The guards banged for entry as he slid the bolt home. Ignoring their vocal protests, Jordayne followed the ancient man into the interior.
“I deal in exotic,” Weng Wu said with a slow wave of his arm across the windowless back room. Crates and life-size terracotta statues, granite carvings of mythical beasts, and chunky gold collars fit for empresses of old packed the vast space. Five times the size of the front shop, this room lay in as disordered an arrangement. It was in this musty, dusty space they had conducted business when last she came. The merchant had held the recommendation of the Satrap of San Tej, who harboured a fondness for all things Eastern, not least among them his retinue of petite women. On that occasion, Weng Wu had received prior warning of his noble visitor, favoured niece of the shah and second in line to the throne. He had not dared to insult her intelligence.
“Nothing more exotic than magus. I want see if he have souvenir to sell.” Here at last was the dignity of the man she remembered, whose imperfect Laanan somehow befitted the wisdom of his years.
Jordayne strolled around the room, trailing a hand along the smooth bumps of the terracotta warriors’ armour, draping a gem-studded necklace around her neck. The bright beauty of it was a stark contrast to the white mourning kameez she wore. Nothing in the room could have given rise to the rumours, those foul murmurings which had existed since the dawn of the Three Realms: a bobbing light in the night; the death of a detested relative days after the despiser had gone to his grave; even a glimpse of the unresponsive body of a dearly departed lumbering through the sleeping streets. Eastern magic. Black magic.
“There is nothing more exotic than a man’s soul,” she said as she placed the necklace around the neck of a statue, her words so soft and loving there was not the faintest hint of threat.
“You speak of Eastern mystery,” Weng Wu said.
“I do. And I speak to one who holds its secret.”
“It is dark thing of which you speak.”
“Nevertheless, you will speak of it to me.”
They regarded each other in a battle of wills. Under her intensifying stare, Weng Wu shook his head. “I know not of this.”
She affected a sigh, and resumed her browsing, stepping back when a faded painting in a gilt frame caught her eye. The ancient oriental depicted bore a striking resemblance to Weng Wu. And how unusual to have a Myklaani artisan kneel before the eastern lord, hands outstretched to offer a crimson butterfly in supplication. She picked up the painting, careless despite her intrigue as she twisted it about. The edge caught a porcelain dog, scraping it across an alabaster table. When she heard the gasp she was listening for, she faced Wu.
“Now these, I believe, are genuine relics.”
“Lady, I ask you take care.”
With the utmost care, Jordayne set the painting down. “I am accustomed to handling the delicate. My guards, on the other hand, are somewhat less circumspect when carrying out their duty. I am afraid I will have to ask them to search the premises.”
“You have no grounds.”
“On suspicion of trafficking stolen goods.”
“The Shah –” he started.
“Indeed,” she interrupted, “the Shah values his taxes almost as much as his mages.”
He bowed his head, shrewd enough to understand the balance of power. “Lady, do not judge what you do not comprehend.”
“Then for your sake you had best ensure I do comprehend.”
It was his turn to sigh, but he offered no more.
“Very well,” she said, and admitted the guards with an order to search every speck of dust in the shop. “I absolve you of the need for caution. These are undeclared fakes,” she told them as they squeezed between laden shelves. Weng Wu bridled as the confines of the front room saw dragons smash and parchment tear, but he maintained his stubborn silence so, when the guards had poked into every crevice, Jordayne took perverse pleasure in commanding them into the back. Here, the old man bustled from one artefact to the other, placing a steadying hand on a vase accidentally elbowed while reaching with the other for a jade carving of an emperor that threatened to topple off a crate as her sergeant trundled past. That left him indisposed when the newest recruit stood from his inspection of a canoe and bumped the terracotta warrior b
ehind him. It tottered on its feet, overbalanced and smashed into large chunks before the startled guard-in-training had time to react. It really was careless of him, and the red-faced lad was staring at the carnage agape. Jordayne was inclined to offer him a bonus before booting him to Captain deq Lungo for further training. As for Weng Wu, his stricken face portended a seizure.
“Do continue,” she said to the frozen guards. “I am eager to make my assignation before nightfall.”
It was only a matter of seconds before the statue of the emperor fell and chipped his nose.
At which point Weng Wu quite sensibly swallowed and rasped, “Lady, you follow me.”
“Well then. That was easy, wasn’t it?” She dismissed the confused guards and waltzed after the merchant, through a narrow gap between stacks of oversized crates. Inside the concealed nook, he pulled aside a quilted wall-hanging of tigers stalking flat-topped trees, and opened a hidden door. Were it not for the spheres of coloured light, arranged on hanging shelves, the darkness would have smothered. It intrigued her, the way they ricocheted off the glass vials containing them. Jordayne studied the random movement, taking the opportunity to palm a vial when Weng Wu turned his back to light two candles.
“Two thousand year, the warrior survive, and you destroy in one day.” The enormity of his loss was evident in the shadowed lines of his face. The wanton destruction had cut her too, but the loss of Trove was the greater pain.
“And what of souls and their right to rest? Is that not the greatest loss?”
He waved her into a simple chair as he sank into another on the opposite side of a table which stretched the width of the room. She held the vial below his sight, but the blue sparks in the apricot light kept drawing her inquisitive eye. Her curiosity got the better of her, or perhaps it was her fatigue. Easing the stopper out, she slipped her hand over the vial, allowing the sphere to surge against her palm. The contact sent a painful buzz along her arm. Her hand jerked away, and the light shot out.
A cautious Weng Wu rose from his chair, his eyes glued to the flitting sphere. “Lady, you go. You go now.”
“Your hospitality is sadly lacking. I have just arrived.” She glanced up and saw the light was resting above her head. She thanked the Vae she had had years of practice sounding nonchalant when her palms were sweating at the calamity behind her lie. “These lights are a nice trick. They would be a fitting touch at the funeral of a mage.”
“Lights no trick. I tell you go.”
Again, Jordayne looked up. The ball of light had descended. A quick study, she scuffed her chair back, unwilling to suffer its sting a second time. “If it is not a trick, then what is it?”
Weng Wu remained silent. She reached a tentative hand to it, intending to trap it in her fist. It would make an interesting keepsake, until Drucilamere could fathom its nature.
“No!” Weng Wu warned as she made a snatch. Her fingers closed on thin air as the light darted towards Weng Wu’s heart. The elderly man sidestepped it with unnatural speed. With a crackle, the light changed direction.
Weng Wu’s voice rang out. “Ne dow san li kan soulous.”
The light froze a hair’s breadth from her chest, the lightning inside a riot of sparks.
“So this is a soulous,” she said in a voice laden with indolence to mask her trepidation, for what else would cause the oriental magician such concern. “It is prettier than I expected.” She reached a languid hand for it.
“Do not,” Weng Wu said.
Too late. The earthbound soul of whichever poor unfortunate the magician had preyed upon zipped away and under the door. The magician stared at the dark crack.
“You do not know what you have done,” he said.
“I hear that a great deal and it is almost invariably never true. So why don’t you tell me, and then I can judge?” Lips pursed to keep her anger at bay, Jordayne selected another vial, this one with a turquoise light. The same blue lightning sparked inside. In truth, Weng Wu was right, but he would not have the satisfaction of hearing it from her. She glared until he sank into the chair, his expression a mix of fear and fury.
“That is better,” Jordayne said, sitting. “Now what have I done? Or more to the point, what have you done that the simple act of opening a vial devastates so?”
He watched her toy with the vial in hand. “I say I create soulous, you arrest me for black magic. I say I don’t, you destroy my treasures.”
From whichever Eastern nation he hailed, she was certain he had acquired his treasures through dubious channels. She might have had a great deal to say about that, as patron of the arts, were it any other day. As it was, there was only one piece of information she wanted from him so, as another wave of grief assaulted her, she said, “If I was going to arrest you, I would have kept the guards present.”
He acknowledged the truth with a bow of his head.
“I am here for one reason alone. Did you steal the soul of the mage?”
“Creating soulous is exacting task. Must have right potion, must be present at exact moment of death.”
Leaning forward, Jordayne found herself needing a patent denial. This blatancy was so unlike her she wondered if, in all this despair, she could accomplish what she had set out to do. “I would still hear it from your lips,” she said.
“I make no soulous last night. I have no chance with lady and Master Mage present.”
“Your men? Apprentices, trainees?”
“This house source no soulai last night. On my honour.”
“I trust you have a modicum,” she said, rising. “Now, will you set these unfortunate souls free, or do I need to call the soldiers?” The number of victims staggered.
“Lady, you know not what you say.”
“Then again I say you had better educate me.”
He rose and pointed a very deliberate finger at the vial. “Trapped souls need magic to fly free. You just release trapped soul, it search for body. It search for eternity if need be.”
With great purpose, Jordayne set the vial on the table. “Then you will work that magic.” Myklaani citizens deserved the chance to travel to the Vae in death. This depraved servitude at the hands of a foreigner was insufferable.
Weng Wu folded his arms. His fingers with their grotesque nails perched upon his elbow.
“Release them, or I will have you arrested,” she said, her ire so great subtlety eluded her.
“Too late for one you set free.”
“Then the others,” she insisted.
“Lady, dark force descend on world. It scare me more than your dungeon or your torture. You slay me, Lady, or I slay myself, but I will not face darkness without magic.”
He had been too far away to hear Trove’s dying words. Yet here he was, a magician versed in the mysteries of the East predicting a calamity akin to the one her magi glimpsed. To ignore the warning was tantamount to leaving Myklaan exposed to threat. “What force?” she asked, the sharp prickle of fear walking along her arms and down her spine.
He looked up and the ceiling dissolved, revealing a multitude of stars swirling in a night sky. “Mystery beyond my human grasp. Gods, djinn, spirits. I know not.”
The illusion disappeared. Her mouth dry, she nodded and opened the door. “Very well, Weng Wu. You may work your magic for the protection of Myklaan.” The words tasted foul, congealing into a rancid grief to add to her indigestible burden. It was a despicable act for which she had granted permission. She prayed it was not one on which she must call.
As she laid a hand on the entrance door, the magician forestalled her. “Lady, forgive me but I must ask. Why you were so sure I wield this power?”
She sighed. “There is a certain satrap who makes the occasional trip to Kaijoor to acquire artefacts for his collection. After one summer trip, word comes of his wife’s untimely demise. His servants were rather loose with their tongues on his next visit, and gabbled to those at the palace of seeing their dead mistress walk beneath the moons. A rather…enthralling story, don�
��t you think?”
He was quiet a moment. His words, when they came, were soft, and their truth was evident in his vacant stare. “I think not enthralling. I think story of dread.”
She opened the door. “Beware, Master Weng Wu. If dark times truly approach, Myklaan may have need of your talents. It would not serve me to have a population scared out of its wits by tales of dark sorcery. They would butcher you. And it is a butchery I will permit if I learn you use the souls of my citizens to serve your own foul ends.”
The magician bowed his head. “Lady, look you to protecting the realm.”
It was not the answer she had hoped for.
Outside, she found no warmth in the glare of the sun. The fidgeting guards did not even notice she had exited until she spoke. “A picture of disarray, aren’t we?” she commented, walking off without waiting.
“My lady, there was an unnatural light,” the normally solid Sergeant Rokan said. “It darted at each of us in turn. I have never seen the like. I swear it wanted to strike us down.”
“A light, you say, Sergeant? And did this light injure your men?” she said, her voice dripping sarcasm. Weng Wu’s mysteries would remain just that until she was ready to reveal them to the realm.