There were heaps of broken planks and other debris, places Viktor could have hidden something, but I doubted this area would have supported his weight, so I decided to search the ground floor. I’d spotted looms and spinning wheels down there. The upper story was more like a mezzanine, allowing me to see part of the level below.
The stairs swayed but held together. I breathed easier when I was standing on solid stone.
The doorways and windows on the ground floor had been bricked in when the place was closed, thus the existence of the second-floor entrance, which must have been used by squatters. I spotted piles of straw and ragged bedding, but no street people sleeping in them. It was strangely quiet in the gloomy space. Bits were broken off the looms for firewood, ash marks visible on the floor, but otherwise, the equipment was intact.
Now, where would Viktor have hidden something?
I pulled out the amulet and searched the area, until a warm glow told me I’d found his trail again. It led to the stairs I’d come down and to various corners of the room.
I spotted a series of shallow stone pools, dried out now. One filled with wood ash and another with crystals of rust orange potash. I remembered the automaton at Bell’s place and felt my stomach churn. I didn’t like gadgets at the best of times, and gadgets combined with necromancy went straight to the top of my scale of wrong.
I took a broken piece of loom and poked at the ashes, but the pools were shallow, and neither I nor the amulet spotted anything there. I turned away and kicked at flagstones and piles of rubble, looking for potential hiding places.
A stone wobbled beneath my foot, and a thrill went up my spine. The amulet was hot, so hot I barely held on to the chain, and its orange light suddenly turned acid green. That was new.
I pried up the loose stone and found a small cavity in the dirt. It was too dark to see, so I reached my hand blindly inside. I felt cold metal and pulled out a scroll canister. This was it.
Hands shaking, I rolled out a stack of vellum sheets.
The top document was a plea to the Crowns, signed by Viktor. I skimmed over it, too excited to alight on any one word for long. The Solhan Circle was mentioned—I’d been right.
I caught sight of a slave certificate for an elf named Fharen and smiled. The bookkeeper, Olaf, had forged documents proving the Elf King was born into slavery. That would get the Crowns’ attention.
Viktor had been gathering evidence for some time, but it wasn’t only about illegal slaves. There was much more: lists of names, military officers from the look of it, names of ships...I saw the word Solheim, and my breath caught in my throat.
My long-forgotten home lay to the east, the way the slavers’ ships had gone. It loomed beyond the river, past the Highcrowne pickets guarding the nation from the Dead God’s approach. Solheim was the end of the world—in all ways.
I was so intent, I’d failed to spot the symbol beneath the loose stone. It niggled for my attention. I pulled my gaze away from all the proof I’d dreamed of and examined the glowing rune. It had a nasty, curled shape to it, and a diseased, purple cloud of light emanated from its lines. A booby trap.
The trap did not frighten me. It hadn’t gone off, so if I remained still I’d be safe. What bothered me was it being there in the spot Viktor had hidden the documents. He must have been the one to draw it.
I remembered Ulric’s and Nanny’s lessons, Morgan’s too. They all tried to hand down Solhan dark magic for different reasons: family power, tradition, protection. I’d run away to avoid looking into the dark faces of our gods. I swore I’d never be like them...but I ended up learning more than I wanted.
I cut across the rune with my fingertip, smearing the coal it was drawn with, and a sharp pain revealed the razor hidden beneath. I bled enough to cover the coal marking entirely, which quenched the remaining purple glow. My blood had satisfied it rather than setting it off, and once again I knew this was Viktor’s work. Our blood was the same.
The stones in the floor around the now defunct rune shifted like someone in the street moving politely aside. They kept shifting and rumbling until a large opening was revealed, along with a staircase going down. This must have been the mill’s basement, and Viktor’s spell had hidden the entrance.
I sucked my finger and then held the wound closed.
I didn’t want to go down there any more than I had wanted to learn the method of erasing a rune that meant you harm—but I had learned the magic Morgan taught me as a child. And I did climb down into the dark.
My eyes adjusted to the gloom almost instantly; something Solhan eyes were good for. I lit the first candle I found, hoping the flame would make the scene less sickening, but its red light lent a hellish cast. It was a shrine to the Devourer.
Older than the Dead God, the Devourer was the prime creator in Solhan religion. The Devourer had swallowed the old universe to make way for this one. We were fortunate He had not been the god summoned into this world in Old Solheim, else we wouldn’t be dealing with an army of undead—we wouldn’t have a world to stand on.
Long tables were strewn with scrolls. I had seen their like in Viktor’s shop, but alongside were glass vials and bags of powders, amulets and rune stones, cords and ropes and chains etched with symbols, jars of body parts and tubes percolating with semi-living blood....
There was a photo of Emily, another of Little Viktor, each surrounded by runes for protection and runes meant to conjure wealth—at a heavy price for the wizard’s soul—as well as runes I didn’t recognize. Which couldn’t be good. The only ones I hadn’t seen as a child were the ones for Solhan initiates, like Uncle Ulric and Nanny. Very dark spells.
My brother never recovered from his wife’s death. Erick had been right—Viktor wanted to die. Why else would he play with such risky magic? And Viktor had been doing much more than that. I half expected to see his heart there on the scale opposite the horse’s heart I did spot, its black blood congealed and smeared over the brass. I didn’t know what that spell was for, but it was necromancy.
Viktor couldn’t have taken his own heart. Seeing this, I wondered if he had invoked other beings who had.
“Viktor...” His name escaped me in a quiet breath. Not you. You were the good one. I closed my eyes. Not you.
The tears that had failed to come for years suddenly gushed from beneath my eyelids and washed down my face and neck.
I’d lied when I said I liked ponies. I’d met a girl once who adored them. She’d been sunshine and fresh air and everything I wasn’t. I’d wanted to love them, if it meant I could be like her.
I could never be.
Seeing the rune trap, seeing this place.... While my stomach heaved with disgust, beneath everything was a flutter of excitement. Energy tingled along my nerves, dying to burst through my skin. It itched to reach out to the scrolls and implements on the table, to connect with power.
The truth was the dark called to me, just as Uncle Ulric said, maybe even more than it called to Ilsa. It was irresistible. I knew if I gave myself to it for a moment, to cast a curse or wield a spell, I’d be gone forever. The dark would have me. I couldn’t give it anything, else it would take all of me.
“No,” I said to the room, to what it represented. “Turn around, Eva. Walk away.”
I thought I was winning, but then I heard metal scrape against stone. I whipped around, not because of willpower but because of survival instinct. The automaton stood on the stairs, looking at me with those bronze eyes. It raised an arm and pointed at Viktor’s workstation.
“...Me.” The automaton’s voice didn’t sound like it came from a machine. It came from a place far away, like someone shouting across a windy forest where the susurration of leaves made the sound blend in with the voice of the trees.
“You?”
“...I am...me.” It pointed at the photos, and I suddenly understood.
“Emily,” I said. “You’re Emily.”
Of course. Viktor would do anything to bring her back. And now he was gone, so
what was the point? This thing could not be a mother to Little Viktor. It was barely Emily at all. But it kept pointing at the photos.
“Your son is safe. Duane and Ulric are looking after him.” Everyone knew I was not the mothering type, or even slightly organized, so it would be no comfort to add I also checked in on Little Viktor, despite risking run-ins with Ilsa.
“...dead. Viktor…” the machine Emily said.
I nodded.
“...me...dead?”
“Yes, you’re dead too.”
“...no...more.” She held her bronze hand before her blank eyes and watched the fingers move with the whirring sound of tiny clockwork parts. “...not…me.”
She dropped her arm and stepped toward me. I wanted to run away, but now I knew this was Emily, and I couldn’t. She pulled open the metal plate covering her chest to show me the pulsing flesh inside. “...make...end.”
She wanted to die. I couldn’t live like that either. My soul bound to a machine powered by dark magic? She should be with Viktor now.
“Goodbye,” I told her.
She just looked at me with those blank eyes.
I reached into her chest and smudged out each of the charcoal runes inscribed on animal parts. I had to wipe my hand on my pants after that. Then I took a small blade from Viktor’s worktable and scratched out the symbols etched inside the automaton’s casing.
Emily slumped forward, before toppling to the ground with a clang of metal. I dropped the knife. Its metallic sound merged with the echo from her ghostly shell.
I could have done that at Bell’s place, but I didn’t want anything to do with magic. I didn’t want to confirm Bell’s assumptions. And I didn’t want bloody organ goop on my fingers. The dynamite would have been better, if it had worked.
I knew it was only a machine, but a part of Emily had dwelled inside it for a time. I took a moment to mourn her passing—again. She’d been the one who took my big brother away from me, but I never hated her. She’d also been the one who made Viktor smile.
A door creaked open above me, and I froze. The place had turned into a thoroughfare. Carefully, I rolled up the sheets half-forgotten in my left hand and returned them to the scroll case. I placed the case in my belt, exchanging it for the Ashur. Footsteps were loud on the stones above me, and the person seemed to notice as well, suddenly stopping to wait and listen.
I clenched my hands on my weapon, afraid the Ashur would slip out of my sweaty grasp. Keeping my breathing shallow when my heart was racing made me crave more air. I wanted to take a big gulp of it, and my lungs ached, but I held still.
It might only be Grim and Gormless following me around like lost puppy dogs—except them I would never have heard coming.
Floorboards creaked elsewhere in the old mill, and I knew there were at least two people. Abandoning stealth, I hurried up the stairs and drew my blade. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, but if I was outnumbered it was best to be prepared.
I dashed into the shadows beneath the mezzanine. One figure, bundled against the cold, faced the other way. He turned around, and I recognized Harald the slaver. Jhenna the half-elf joined him from the level above, taking the creaking old steps as slowly and quietly as she could.
“I thought you two had left town?” I said, startling them. Their gazes swept the room until they spotted me in the gloom beneath the stairs.
“Did you find it?” Jhenna asked me.
“Find what?” Always play dumb, let them do the revealing; that was my motto. Besides, I didn’t know if they meant the papers or the dead automaton.
Harald whispered a few words beneath his breath, and I felt the answer unwillingly roll off my tongue: “Yes, I have them.”
Must be the documents they were searching for, and Harald must be the mage who could place slave marks. He also had the ability to make me say things I didn’t want to.
“Give it to me,” He held out a hand out for the scroll case. At least he couldn’t make me do things I didn’t want to.
I levelled the sword at him. “No.”
His gaze focused on me. A few more mumbled words preceded a comical waving of hands. I was unsure what the spell was meant to do, but I felt nothing, and Harald frowned.
“It is a sacred blade,” Jhenna told him. “It protects her.”
I looked at the Ashur. I’d never known what the carvings in its surface meant, but I was suddenly grateful they were there. My mother’s weapon evidently granted some magical protection.
Emboldened, I asked, “What have you done with Nanny?”
“Nothing,” Jhenna said.
“The same ‘nothing’ you have planned for me?”
“We don’t want to hurt you. Give us the documents and you can go.”
Harald was too quiet. I glanced his way and saw he held a leather thong dotted with bone charms, feathers, and dried bits of flesh, including the shriveled remains of an eye. He was trying to curse me.
“Put that down. Now.” I raised the serrated blade threateningly.
I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, but Jhenna was so fast I barely had time to step back, my hair rustled by the breeze made by something passing next to my ear.
She had an Ashur as well. Hers was bone like mine, but where I had a silvery orb at one end, she had the gold figurine of an owl. It was that bit of metal that had nearly crashed into the side of my head.
Angry, I lunged, hoping to push her back so I’d have a little more space to think. She drew her own blade and came after me, using the bone sheath to knock my weapon aside. I struggled to block her attack and return to the offensive, but she pressed forward, fast and sure. She was well trained. My own lessons had been sporadic over the years.
I didn’t like being in a fight with someone who was clearly my match, while worrying about a mage in the corner casting curses.
I tried to go between them, wanting to escape up the stairs and out the window, but I was penned in. I needed to get the documents to safety...and me too. I didn’t think the current situation boded well for my health.
Harald began casting another spell. I didn’t want him to do that.
I backed up, putting a wooden support beam between Jhenna and me, and circled in his direction. Jhenna was too good for me devote more than a fraction of my attention to Harald. I swung the sheath of my Ashur at him, felt a glancing blow against something soft, perhaps his forearm. He gasped and took a step away. I hoped I had distracted him enough to break the spell.
Unfortunately, it had distracted me too.
Jhenna closed in. She hooked her blade against mine and twisted, trying to pull the Ashur out of my grip. I felt my weapon slipping away, so I brought the sheath back around to stop her. She blocked it with her own. My blade went flying. I backed up, so she couldn’t get in a killing blow. I had only the sheath to defend with now.
Jhenna came in with a low swing using her own sheath. I sidestepped enough to allow it to glance off my thigh—it would leave a bruise—but reserved my block for her follow up strike with the blade. I was sweating now.
Dust rained down from the floorboards above, and I squinted to avoid getting dirt in my eyes. Great, like I needed another handicap.
Jhenna squinted too and glanced up. Someone was coming. I took advantage of her brief loss of concentration and lunged for my blade, which lay on the ground beneath the crumbling staircase. I rolled and came up crouched and ready, armed once more.
Planks bowed and creaked overhead but didn’t break, although someone heavy was moving across them. As he came down the steps, I realized I could hamstring him, but I didn’t. The tiny feet following the big ones convinced me I’d chosen correctly, especially when one of the small feet caught between two rungs, sending Grim falling face first with a loud smack. Gormless quickly extracted him. My backup had arrived.
Once again, I was grateful Duane didn’t listen to me. Of course, I would never tell him that.
Jhenna was on guard, watching me and watching the new arrivals.
>
“You okay, Eva?” Gormless popped his knuckles.
I relaxed my stance. “Fine, once you break this cow’s arms.”
Jhenna scowled. “You’re making me angry.”
“You’re outnumbered,” I told her. “Put the Ashur down.”
She assessed Gormless, who, if not grall-sized, was still impressive. “Please. I was a bit bored with you, and I see nothing yet to make me fear.” She dropped the sheath but held the sword two-handed. “Come.”
Grim drew a dagger and threw it. Jhenna dodged and, in a blur, sliced the air between me on one side of her and Gormless on the other, forcing both of us back. She was fast. She hadn’t been bluffing: she had been holding back before.
Perhaps the three of us would eventually wear Jhenna down, but there was no chance to find out. We’d all ignored the unarmed Harald for too long—big mistake.
“Kharvu!” the mage said, waving his necklace of horrors in the direction of the two men.
A rotting odor, like meat left in the sun to liquefy and attract flies, filled the room, and I gagged. Grim collapsed, screaming, as black sores formed all over his body.
Gormless avoided the brunt of the curse, but he rubbed at a disintegrating patch on the back of his hand. He frowned like a child ready to burst into tears over a scrape. “That hurts!” The thug rushed Harald.
Jhenna moved to intervene, but I swung, aiming the silver orb on the hilt of my sword for the section of skull above her left ear. My full strength wasn’t behind it, because I wanted her alive to answer my questions. She turned in time to avoid the blow and knocked the wind out of me with her fist. I braced for another blow, but Jhenna ignored me and went after Gormless.
“Stay away from him,” she said. The slaver was concerned enough for her husband to leave me at her back. Of course, she didn’t need to see me to kill me.
I regained my feet and stumbled forward, ignoring the cramp in my gut. Gormless was focused on Harald, inching painfully toward him as the putrefaction of his flesh worsened, oblivious to Jhenna’s raised sword.
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