Shadow and Light

by Peter Sartucci

  At this Chisaad’s anger exploded again. “Window? You tried to trap him in his home, amidst that huge family of his?”

  “Wizard!” snapped Ap Marn. “Hold your tongue while I handle this.” To Darnaud, the former Governor icily said, “You were supposed to kill him in the street outside the Diplomatic Gate. We even arranged for the Watch to be absent and the garrison to be looking the other way. Why didn’t you do it there?”

  The Duke glowered at Chisaad once more, then turned to his fellow Gwythlo and superior, and told of the botched attack. “So we went to the place Boerga said he would go, that big inn, and laid a trap for him there. This time I had my men line up shoulder to shoulder with their swords out, so that they could still get him when he tried that shadow trick, which he did. But he killed one of my men and escaped.” The Duke made the Gwythlo sign against evil and his face grew paler. “There wasn’t a mark on the body! What kind of demon kills like that?”

  Icy fingers of fear ran up and down Chisaad’s spine at the thought of Kirin at large somewhere in the city. He could be anywhere, could be seeking help right now—

  Then Darnaud’s last words penetrated Chisaad’s mind and he relaxed. “That’s the answer. Report your man’s death as a murder by the demon-familiar of a suspected blood mage. That will dispose the Temple Hierarchy against him. Even if he talks about kidnapping the Prince, it won’t matter. The Hierarchy will never trust the word of a blood-mage. Meanwhile, My Lord Governor can alert the City Watch to search for him.”

  Ap Marn nodded, following the logic. “But if he has already run to the Hierarchy, the yellow bitches will have heard his story first. They’ll be suspicious of a counter-story.”

  “He hasn’t,” Darnaud interjected. “He’s left the city.”

  “What?” Ap Marn snapped. “Explain.”

  “He got help from a couple of the Temple bitches down by the docks, we caught one rowing back after she took him out to a ship in the harbor. She said it had already left with him by the time she got back to shore.”

  “Then he probably told his story to her, and she’s likely in the Hierarch’s office right now repeating it,” Chisaad groaned.

  Darnaud grinned in a way that reminded Chisaad unpleasantly of a shark he’d once seen hauled out of the harbor.

  “She won’t be repeating anything, even if they raise her,” the Duke boasted. “Boerga took care of that after we killed them. Bitches must have known something ‘cause they attacked us. Stupid.”

  “You killed two Priestesses?” Chisaad demanded, torn between being appalled and envious.

  Darnaud sneered. “I said so, didn’t I? Boerga made it look like a demon attack.”

  “Very clever of her,” Ap Marn said. “But that won’t fool them forever, and we can’t count on him to stay away for long. Where is the ship bound?”

  Darnaud admitted his ignorance.

  Chisaad made an impatient gesture. “Any ship leaving on the night tide is aiming for the open sea, so it can’t have been a coastal trader. That means they plan to cover a distance, and he can’t get back here without switching to another ship at the end, then sailing all the way back, which takes many tendays. Four is more than we need, half that might do. The Queen is dying, and we control her brat. Once the Choosing is done, nothing that went before will matter.”

  “As long as we also control the new King,” Ap Marn pointed out, gazing at him through narrowed eyes.

  Chisaad sensed the suspicion in that gaze and immediately moved to neutralize it. “That is what we should be working on right now, My Lord. We need to manipulate the roster of the Twenty Candidates so that the most capable are sidelined or killed. While also neutralizing Baron Penghar and searching for Kirin. Killing him is still essential, and the sooner the better.”

  Darnaud snorted, turned to Ap Marn. “That’s more to my liking. Tell me who to kill first and I’ll handle it.”

  “Thank you, Your Grace.” Ap Marn frowned, obviously resisting the temptation to remind Darnaud about the night’s failure. “Penghar can wait a while, before that we must make very sure Kirin has left the City and send an assassin after him if he’s sailed to another port. But first, we need you to report your man’s death as a demon-slaying and connect it to the deaths of those two priestesses. Come, let’s arrange that now. Wizard, I’ll meet with you after this detail is taken care of, and we’ll discuss the Twenty—and this unexpected talent for dealing death that your apprentice has shown.”

  Chisaad nodded unhappily and saw the two Gwythlos out of his tower. He checked the door after them, locked and barred it, and then double-checked every other window and door. Spells were not enough against Kirin’s talents, as he was all too aware, but there were sophisticated tricks that he had been thinking about ever since he met the youth. The best involved a spell resting lightly on the house wards, a spell that every few moments simply sent a soft chime to his ears to tell him that the wards were still functioning. He would get used to it and cease hearing its monotonous reminder after a while, until it stopped. It took him most of an hour to construct and install, but he felt better afterwards. Since Kirin had never been shown how to counter this, chances were good that he’d break it if he tried to enter the house or Tower, and alert Chisaad.

  Did he really flee the City? It makes the most sense. He’s young and cocky, but under that shell he’s a scared boy. But if he’s still here, if he runs to Ymera instead, what steps do I take against her, or to win her to my side? She sent him to me once, but I better not count on that happening again. For that matter, what if Darnaud is wrong and Kirin didn’t leave the city?

  He hoped Ap Marn and that fool Darnaud took care of the false trail quickly.

  If it is a false trail. For all I know, Kirin really does have a demon within him.

  He shivered and returned to work.

  CHAPTER 37: TERRELL

  Prince Terrell DuRillin DiGwythlo awoke on a hard floor.

  For a while his drug-addled mind knew only the chilly surface under his back. Gradually the fog cleared from his wits.

  Drugged. Somebody drugged me. Chisaad? Yes, but before him somebody else. I saw myself, twice . . . like that time with that mage in the Bazaar.

  Discordant images tumbled through his thoughts. His bedroom in the Palace. Somebody standing over him, somebody with the blackest eyes Terrell had ever seen. He remembered breathing something bitter-smelling and remembered passing out. It had to be that same mage swapping his mind with mine.

  Memory finally crystallized. He held a drugged rag over my face, right, I remember now. I fought, but he was as strong as a warrior, much stronger than any mage I ever met. Then I woke up somewhere else. Inside the Palace? But that room looked shabby and stark, I’d swear it didn’t have a shred of decoration in it. Not the Palace. So Chisaad took me somewhere. How did he get me out of the Palace without the spells and the guards stopping him?

  Wait, I remember Ap Marn there. The traitor! They had me on a big table. There were bookshelves and a glowing diagram on the floor, a decagram. Wizard things. Maybe Chisaad’s home? Ap Marn with Chisaad and somebody else.

  That mage! I saw his black eyes looking at me through a gap in a bookshelf. Why peek at me that way? One of Chisaad’s servants could surely have stared openly. Unless he wasn’t supposed to be there? That makes no sense.

  Terrell let his aching mind rest for a while and simply looked around. He lay flat in the middle of a huge round space as big as the Mother Temple in Aretzo, manacled to the floor with his arms and legs splayed out. Being naked added to the discomfort and made it even more degrading. The tiles under his back and buttocks chilled him. High overhead the room’s ceiling curved into a dome, with a circular opening or ocular directly overhead. Outside he could see cloudless blue sky. He slowly turned his throbbing head to look around.

  Glassless windows ringed the base of the dome and provided light. It had been a generously proportioned and beautiful room, with marble walls, travertine and tile floors an
d an elaborate coffered ceiling decorated with vine-like traceries. Spalled places revealed where carvings had been removed. That vandalism and long neglect left the walls cracked and bulged. Fragments fallen from the inside of the dome littered the floor. He could see no trace of furniture, nothing but bits of windblown debris in the corners. Open doorways to his left and right led into other spaces that he could barely see. If he’d awoke the next morning then those would be east and west, and a third opening lead north. His magesight revealed that all three were barred by fresh spells, as were the windows and overhead ocular.

  This is a Silbari Temple. Or the ruin of one.

  He inhaled deeply. A muddy stench pervaded the air, flavored with stagnant water, rotting weeds, and nastier odors that hovered below his ability to identify them.

  He said he was sending me to the ruined city. Silbariki. That decagram had to be some kind of teleporter, a huge one. Big enough to send a man?

  Terrell had heard of recent experiments to use such devices for sending messages much faster than a message construct. If that one had been used to send him here, then Chisaad had come up with a new variant. Such a sending must take great power or great subtlety, probably both. He wondered if any other wizard had noticed such a large draw on the Aretzo Node.

  Then Terrell cursed himself for a fool. Chisaad’s duties included tracking such things; if he chose not to make note of it no one would question him.

  Yet. But his subordinates will know he did something. Has he enlisted them in his treason, or is he simply pressuring them to keep quiet? Surely that will only work for a while. People like to talk, and mages are as gossipy as anyone else. If he uses such powerful magics often, eventually one of the Council will notice too, or the Hierarchy.

  But that reed was too slender to bear the weight of his hopes. Eventually might be a long time. Nobody’s going to rescue me. I must find a way out on my own. He had to admit that his chances of doing that did not look good.

  His headache remained, throat sore and mouth dry, and stomach getting hungry. He tested his bonds by tensing his muscles. The manacles were fastened to spikes driven into the floor and allowed only a few finger widths of movement. Perhaps by tugging them back and forth he might loosen one enough to get an arm free.

  Then footsteps approached.

  Terrell raised his head, endured the resulting ache, and saw one of Ap Marn’s Gwythlo military aides stride through the eastern door. A silver badge flashed at his neck, probably the passkey that let him through the ward spell. His memory fumbled for the man’s name—Dylan Fenman.

  Fenman stopped a yard from Terrell’s side, surveyed him critically. The aide’s pasty complexion stood out in the gloom. “You’re awake sooner than the wizard thought you’d be. I’m surprised a darkie like you recovered this fast. Maybe your Gwythlo blood is stronger than it looks.”

  Terrell made sure his voice stayed calm before he replied. “Fenman. How did he enlist you for this treason?”

  The man chuckled. “It’s not treason for me. I’m only obeying my sworn lord, Ap Marn. Your bad favor with the land-wights looks sure to put him back on top. I’d be a fool not to prosper on the side.”

  “I see.” Terrell kept his voice flat only with effort. He wanted to rage at the traitor, but that wouldn’t set him free. “So, you let yourself be bought.”

  “Oh yes. With two thousand pounds of silver,” Fenman boasted. “Enough to get me a full officer’s commission, buy a little farm, and pay for my wedding too.” He grinned broadly. “Thanks for being so valuable, darkie princeling.”

  Terrell clenched his jaws against further words.

  Fenman looked faintly disappointed as he knelt by Terrell’s side and held out a cup. “Water. I advise you to drink it, since you’ll get no more until evening.” He dribbled the fluid slowly into Terrell’s mouth.

  Tepid and alkaline, but water. Terrell swallowed, managed not to choke on it. Fenman kept staring at his face. No, he’s staring at the top of my head. For the first time Terrell became aware of something there. He swallowed the last dribble and tried shaking his head.

  Agony turned the world red.

  Fenman grinned and waved an admonishing finger at him. “Unh-uh, darkie. Shake the spider too much and you’ll regret it. The wizard said to make sure you know this; it’s already read your mind. You can’t sabotage his plans by destroying it, but you can kill yourself prematurely by trying. That silver spike runs right through the top of your skull. Shake it free and your brains leak out too. I bet that’ll hurt! So be a smart princeling. Lie here quietly and you get a couple extra tendays to live.”

  Fenman got up and left. Terrell waited until the pain in his head had subsided and he could no longer hear the man’s footsteps. Then he very gently moved his head from side to side, this time sensing the small weight clinging there.

  Spider, he called it. It’s already read my mind? What good will that do? Sooner or later I’ll be missed; it must have already happened. The Palace servants will have raised a cry, alerted the Temple, sent word to Pen. Dona Seraphina must already be questioning everybody and searching for me. Even if Chisaad’s pretending to join that search, suspicion must eventually fall on him. He’s keeping me alive for some purpose, but if his device has read my mind, why bother? They’d be wiser to kill me.

  Fenman didn’t seem worried about that at all. In fact, he seemed to be anticipating some denouement that pleased him. Did he have actual knowledge, or only a hope?

  This doesn’t make sense. I’ll have to get him to talk to me more.

  He gave up wondering for now; without information it was pointless. Instead he began probing the spider with his magical sensitivity. It stayed infuriatingly opaque. He could not find a single way into it or any way to affect its operation, even when, frustrated beyond bearing, he gave up on subtlety and tried to overwhelm it with Light. The thing simply sat there atop his head, busily doing Seraphs-Knew-What to his mind.

  Chisaad knew about my special ability, he talked with Shimoor and me about it twice. He must have figured out a way to shield his creation against my tampering. The thought depressed Terrell. He had extended his trust to the Wizard simply because the man had been Shimoor’s star pupil. Everything I confided to him, he can use against me.

  He tried testing the stakes that held him. For a timeless time, he alternately tensed and relaxed his arms and legs, trying to work the iron spikes free. The beams of sunlight through the windows and the ocular moved across the floor and onto the opposite wall. Occasional bird-cries filtered in from outside the windows. He grew hungrier. His bladder filled and for a long time he held it until the discomfort grew too great to stand. Then he endured the shame of pissing himself. And the stink. At least urine dried quickly. He continued to work the stakes until his muscles were trembling with exhaustion, his wrists were chafed, and his eyes stung from dried sweat. The metal showed no sign of loosening.

  Maybe I can keep at it tonight. But if—no, when, I free myself, how do I get out of here?

  He had spent time listening during his rest periods. There were occasional noises through the eastern door that Fenman had used, distant echoes of something heavy being moved. For an hour or more he heard the monotonous sound of an axe chopping wood or perhaps somebody working at a pell with a sword. Once he thought he heard the smash of a ceramic dish dropped on a floor and a faint stream of curses following it. That last didn’t sound like Fenman’s voice, so his captors must have left more than one guard with him.

  He examined his manacles as best he could, moving his head slowly to prevent a repeat of the pain. They had been made of spell-shaped iron molded to his wrists and showed neither seam nor lock. They gleamed like something new-made, so Chisaad had to have set this up quite recently.

  He said they need me alive until the Choosing. That must mean he’s supporting another one of the Twenty, but which one? He’s stayed well clear of all of them while I’ve been there. This may be a sudden change in allegiance, or part of a de
eper-laid plan.

  He went back to tensing and relaxing, over and over until his muscles burned. Hours crept by, the suns passed almost overhead. The shaft of light shining down through the ocular moved away from him, and still he lay there alone.

  The sunlight had climbed more than halfway up the opposite wall when Fenman finally returned with a bucket of water. He ladled three cups of it into Terrell and between them fed him a few bites of dried beef. It wasn’t enough to satisfy Terrell’s stomach but it took the edge off his hunger.

  “Can’t have you dying too soon,” the Gwythlo aide said with indecent cheerfulness.

  “Why not?” Terrell asked. “I don’t understand why I’m still alive, if this thing on my head has truly read my mind.”

  Fenman laughed. “Don’t ask me to explain it, I’m no mage. My Lord says keep you alive until the wizard doesn’t need you anymore. Good enough for me.”

  Then he poured the rest of the bucket over Terrell from crotch to face. “Have a bath, darkie. The less I have to smell you, the better. See you in the morning.”

  While his jailer walked away, whistling, Terrell counted footsteps. It took Fenman twenty-five steps to cross the sixty feet or so of floor between his staked-out position and the east doorway, then another hundred before the man set his bucket down with a clatter. That made it less than three hundred feet from his prison room to the room that he guessed Fenman stayed in. He heard voices again, indistinct, and then nothing.

  The sunbeam slanting through the ocular slowly climbed the inside of the dome and pinched out. The light through the windows followed. Stars appeared in the darkening sky above. For a while candlelight flickered and sounds from his guards’ quarters echoed down the corridor, then the candle went out and silence ruled.

  The wet stone beneath him grew no chillier and the air remained warm and humid. In winter this room probably grew cold enough to kill him overnight. But Silbar in autumn still baked under the Two Suns, and winter was still tendays away. The stone walls and dome metered residual warmth back at him. Hunger gnawed but not enough to cause more than annoyance yet.