Deathcaster

by Cinda Williams Chima

  “It has to be someone at court,” his father said, “someone who could get hold of the locket, who would know why it was important. Did the busker provide a description?”

  Ash nodded. “Keep in mind—I never spoke to the busker. All this is secondhand. He described Darian as tall, gaunt, and gifted.” He paused. “The day you were murdered, remember, someone grabbed me in the street. I was smaller then, but I remember him as somebody who fit that description.”

  His father thought a moment. “Does the name Darian mean anything to you?”

  “I looked it up in the Temple library at Ardenscourt. Apparently, the original Darian was a founder and saint of the Malthusian church.”

  “Was he a wizard?”

  “Yes.” Something in his father’s face impelled him to add, “Since that was a thousand years ago, I think we can assume this isn’t the same person. Just somebody inspired by him.”

  “You’re probably right,” his father said slowly, “though you never know. After all, our thousand-year-old ancestor Alger Waterlow came back in the form of a character named Crow.”

  “In Aediion,” Ash said. “Not in real life.”

  “He could have shown up in real life,” his father said, “if he’d caught a ride back with a living person.”

  “What do you mean—caught a ride back?” Ash said. “I never heard of that.”

  “Early on, Crow demonstrated that he could come back with me to real life and control my actions and use my magic. I always worried that he would possess me in order to take revenge on his enemies. The descendants of his enemies, anyway.”

  That’s when Ash remembered—he’d read about that in Kinley.

  He shivered, the hairs standing up on the back of his neck as if a cold draft had come in through the tavern door. And, indeed, the lanterns flickered and popped.

  “So the attacks involve someone tall, gaunt, and gifted, using the name Darian,” his father summarized. “Someone at court, or at least knowledgeable about it. Someone with access to the royal family.”

  “Could it be—do you think it’s Micah Bayar? He and Finn were always close. And you and he were . . . not.”

  His father considered this, absently fingering his scarred wrists where the cuffs had been. Then shook his head. “I would like to pin this on Micah, and I might have done until we got to the point of poisoning Raisa. That, he would never do. I think Raisa was the only topic we ever agreed on. For all of his faults, he has always loved her. I think he would die before he would see her come to harm. And the notion of him throwing in with a bunch of fanatics is too ludicrous to stomach.”

  “All right. Not Micah,” Ash said, crossing the High Wizard off his mental list. “So. It would have to be someone skilled with poisons, or with access to that expertise. Not all of the killings were poisonings, but I believe the same poison was used on Mother as what was used to kill you. It’s called two-step lily—rare and relatively unknown. Amateurs and jilted lovers tend to use gedden, which is readily recognized, or moonflower, sometimes mixed with flowering oak, to mask the—” He cut off abruptly at the mixed sorrow and guilt on his father’s face. “What?”

  His father sighed. “Like I said—you’ve traveled a long way since we last met, to places I hoped you’d never have to go. Back in my Ragmarket days, I gave no quarter. I destroyed my rivals in the hopes that one day my children wouldn’t have to live that life. And now here we are.”

  He knows, Ash thought. He knows I’m a killer. Tall, gaunt, and gifted, with a talent for poisons—that could describe me.

  “There’s still time, Da,” Ash said softly. “It’s not too late.”

  “Maybe,” his father said. “I wish we’d have talked sooner.”

  Since the day his mother was poisoned, a question had been plaguing Ash. “I— Why didn’t you reach out before? I didn’t know this was possible. I thought what you did with our grandfather was a one-off thing. I would have tried to connect before now, if I’d known.”

  “I have no memory of the time right after the attack,” his father said, drawing circles on the tabletop with his forefinger. “It was as if I didn’t exist. I suspect that I just wasn’t bitter enough to keep fighting.”

  “What do you mean?”

  His father smiled faintly. “I mean that I was beginning to think I deserved what I got. I was tired. I’d been fighting for the queendom and the line for more than twenty-five years, yet the war showed no sign of ending. I’d lost Hana, and Simon Byrne, and Cat Tyburn, and was beginning to think someone else would do a better job.”

  Ash made as if to protest, but his father shook his head. “It was Alger—Crow—who wouldn’t let me rest. Remember, he’d been betrayed by his best friend. He never had a life with Hanalea.

  “So. It irked him that after all the trouble he’d taken to restore the Line, I let myself be taken down by assassins on the street like a nick-ninny mark.” He paused. “He wouldn’t use that word, of course,” he said drily. “He’s too fancy for that. Even after Alger intervened, I couldn’t make a connection. As you said, nobody knew I was here, so nobody came looking. Alger waited a thousand years for me to wander into Aediion. It wasn’t until Raisa—until Raisa was dying that I had a way of communicating with you, through her.”

  But if his father hadn’t planned for this, then—?

  “But you told me where to meet you,” Ash said. “You told me to meet you here.”

  “What do you mean?” His father looked lost.

  “The note. In Kinley. Drovers’ Inn, it said.”

  “I never wrote a note in Kinley,” his father said.

  “Then who did?” Ash said. Who else even knew they’d had breakfast at the inn that morning?

  The answer blazed across his consciousness before he’d properly finished the question.

  The killers.

  So. This was not a message from his dead father, desperate for a meeting. It was, most likely, a trap set by his murderers for his son.

  It might also be a chance to get some answers.

  The Alisters, father and son, looked at each other, understanding kindling between them. Then both scanned the room, then looked toward the door. Nothing seemed awry.

  His father reached across the table, closing his hand over Ash’s. “Go back,” he said. “Now. I’ll wait here and have a chat with them. We’ll meet up later, and I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  “I’m staying,” Ash said.

  “Use your head,” his father said. “I’m already dead. You’re alive. The whole point is to keep it that way.”

  “Look,” Ash said. “It’s taken me four years to arrange one meeting with you. Who knows when it will happen again? If I don’t find out who’s behind this, I might not make it to that next meeting. I’ll stay, but I promise I’ll go when the time is right.”

  “How much power do you have on board?” his father asked, gesturing toward his amulet. “I can create illusions and the like, but I have no actual magical energy. If you’re still here when you run out of flash, you’ll have no way of getting back.”

  “I’m good,” Ash said, fingering his amulet.

  “Remember, swords and that lot don’t work here.” He gestured toward his sword, leaning against the wall. “That’s all illusion. The only weapon you or anyone else has is magic. Drop an illusory anvil on your enemy, and it won’t make a bit of difference. Killing charms, immobilization charms, and the like, are the thing.”

  “Got it,” Ash said, with more confidence than he actually felt. He reviewed what he’d read in Kinley about weapons to use in the dream world.

  His father hesitated. “Now. If you insist on staying, it will help if those who come don’t know I’m here. Would it be all right if I join forces with you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll inhabit your person alongside you. Alger did that with me, once or twice. You’ll hear my voice in your head, and I’ll act through you if I think I can help.”

  “Go
ahead,” Ash said warily.

  His father disappeared from his seat at the corner table. When he slipped into Ash’s consciousness, it was more like being embraced than anything else. Ash felt a warm presence, like he had an ally and counselor in his head. It was more mental and emotional than physical—the knowledge that someone had his back.

  Now that we’re joined, we can communicate without an enemy overhearing.

  Okay. Ash kept scanning the taproom, pushing the margins out, wanting to put distance between him and whomever might be coming.

  If you keep your amulet in your hand or your pocket, you won’t signal to them when you reach for it.

  Ash lifted the chain over his head, looped it around his wrist, and gripped his amulet in his right hand.

  This is a mind game. Put on your street face. You may find that you— We have company.

  Ash could see the shadows all around the room deepening, becoming more solid, moving and sliding past each other.

  Most of them are not real. The trick is to find the wizard hosts among the rest and target them. They will try to fool you into using up all of your flash lobbing at phantoms. Then you’re done. Remember, they can’t hurt you except through direct magic.

  The shades swarmed toward them, shredding, reassembling, stretching into new shapes, with Ash desperately resisting the temptation to let fly.

  Which one of these is not like the others? Ash thought.

  That one, perhaps. It was moving with more purpose than the others. He aimed carefully, fired, and the shadow dissipated into nothingness.

  Just a shade. You’ll see a glow when your real target accesses magic. That will pinpoint him and let you know when he’s about to make his move.

  It took everything Ash had to stand fast with shades flying into his face, swirling around his body, sliding under his clothes. It was like being swallowed by a mob, knowing that someone in the crowd was packing.

  A faint glow kindled in the midst of the shades. Ash threw himself flat as a killing charm rocketed through the spot where he’d been moments before. He fired back at where he guessed the shot had come from, but he must have missed, because it had no apparent effect.

  Now, inky blackness descended over everything.

  “So, mage, I have taken your eyes,” a soft voice said. “We’ll see how well you do when I hunt you in the dark.”

  Dread sluiced over Ash. Those were the very words used by the dark priest who’d nearly blinded him in the cellars of Ardenscourt.

  “You like to hide in the dark,” Han Alister said, speaking aloud through Ash, seeming to echo inside his head. “Let’s see how you look in daylight.” Brilliant light flooded in, lighting every corner of the Drovers’ Inn, driving the shades and shadows away. Leaving one standing alone.

  It wasn’t Bayar, or Finn, or anyone Ash expected. It was Lyss, clad in the spattercloth of the Highlander army. She looked around, as if bewildered, her hand on the hilt of her sword.

  Ash might not have recognized her, except that his mother had shown him a recent portrait of his sister in her captain’s uniform, her honey-colored braid draped over her shoulder.

  “What is this place?” she demanded. She lifted her chin, focusing on Ash. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Lyss,” Ash said. “It’s me. Ash.”

  She stared at him, brow furrowed, shaking her head. Her clothing wavered, shifted, settled again.

  “It’s Ash,” he said again, extending his arms.

  He was conscious of his father, clamoring in his head. Ash. Remember what I said. That could be anyone. And then, more urgently, Ash. That’s not Lyss. It’s a rig. Don’t fall for it.

  I’ve got this, Da.

  “Ash?” Lyss took a step forward, and then another. “But how? Is this a dream?”

  “Lyss,” Ash said. “I don’t understand—how did you get here?”

  A smile broke across her face, wiping away the confusion. “It is you!”

  She charged toward him, the image fragmenting momentarily, then coalescing into a bolt of elemental flame.

  Ash raised the hand with the amulet and clasped it with his other hand, extending it out in front of him. As flame torrented toward him, he spoke the ancient charm from Kinley. The flash was intercepted by his amulet, drawing it in, heating in his hands as flash accumulated.

  Slick, his father said.

  Lyss screamed, her voice changing midscream, as her form and features changed as well. For a moment, Ash was facing off with Finn sul’Mander, his features twisted in agony, and then another face—unfamiliar.

  It resembled a demon’s face—thin-lipped, hollow-cheeked in a cowl and prelate’s robes.

  “You have temporarily broken the thread that connects me to the living,” the demon said, “and that is all.”

  Ash sent flame spiraling toward him, but it appeared to pass straight through the spectre.

  “You cannot kill me, mage,” it said. “I am already dead.”

  Is that true? There’s no way to kill him? Ash silently asked his father.

  That’s true. He and I belong here, you don’t. But without a connection to the world of the living, he has no access to magic.

  “Surrender, mage,” the demon said. “I have been fighting this war for five hundred years. You cannot match my knowledge and determination.”

  “You must be Darian the dead and depleted,” Ash said. “Knowledge and determination are no match for magic.”

  “Ah, but there’s where you’re wrong,” Darian said. “Knowledge and determination are what enable me to acquire magic.”

  Ash heard the warning in the priest’s voice, but still, when Darian attacked it was almost impossible to resist. He felt an intense and painful pressure, as if someone were pounding on the borders of his brain, demanding to be let in. Tendrils of someone else’s memory were sliding through tiny cracks in his mental wall, scenes and biases from someone else’s experience. Ash stiffened his resistance, pushed back.

  And then, with a force like an explosion against the inside of Ash’s skull, Darian was driven back, every trace of his presence excised.

  “Leave off, Darian,” Han said. “You claim to be a priest, but you serve the Breaker. This is Ragmarket, and this is my blood. If you come onto my turf again, you’ll answer to the Demon King.”

  And then, to Ash, Time to go. Come back when it’s safe. Southbridge Temple next time.

  Southbridge Temple. Ash gripped his amulet and spoke the portal charm.

  16

  NEWS FROM THE CAPITAL

  As Hal assessed the battalions of soldiers contributed by the rebel thanes, he couldn’t help feeling like he was reliving the debacle at Queen Court. Once again, he was being asked to lead poorly trained troops against a better-prepared and more experienced enemy.

  Hal was beginning to appreciate King Gerard’s genius in collecting taxes instead of troops from his liege lords. That way, he could hire and equip a full-time professional army—one that didn’t come and go with the seasons or whims of the thanes.

  The nobility grumbled about taxes but could not afford to send their bannermen and tenants away during the summer growing season, year after year.

  That allowed Gerard to fight his semipermanent war in the north. It also prevented the thanes from fielding experienced armies of their own.

  Each of the rebel thanes planned to lead his own troops into battle. Which was either brave or foolhardy on their part, but it also meant that launching a battle plan was like herding cats. Each lord was endeavoring to preserve his own army while jockeying for a dominant or advantageous position in the end.

  How about we focus on defeating the Ardenine army? Hal thought. If we’re successful, you can fight over the spoils. If not, our heads will be decorating the palisades in Ardenscourt.

  “General Matelon?” His aide-de-camp poked his head into the room. “Corporal Matelon has returned, sir, and has asked to see you.”

  “Show him in,” Hal said, pushing his diagrams and sk
etches aside, hoping his brother brought good news.

  Robert entered, followed by Jan Rives, his father’s longtime quartermaster. Hal had sent the two of them to Ardenscourt on what he preferred to call a reconnaissance mission. He’d hoped Rives would be the check on Robert’s penchant for impulse. Hal could tell by their appearance that they’d come straight from the paddocks. He could tell by his brother’s face that he brought news, and at least some of it was good.

  “Welcome back,” Hal said, relieved that they’d made it back safely. He hated sending his fourteen-year-old brother into harm’s way. But Robert was smart and unquestionably loyal—two traits that were hard to come by in this command. And, in this instance, Robert was the emissary he needed.

  There are no children in a civil war.

  “Are you hungry? Thirsty?” An unnecessary question, because soldiers were always both. “There’s cider on the sideboard, cheese and bread and fruit. If you want something more, I can—”

  “This will do,” Robert said, already pouring.

  It was all Hal could do to wait until they had settled down to eat before he said, “Well? How did it go?”

  “Karn’s disgraced, dead, and hanging from the city walls,” Robert said.

  Hal stared at Robert, his heart sinking. Since the night they’d escaped from Ardenscourt, Hal had been trying to devise a way to save Destin Karn if and when they took the city. He might be a ruthless, conniving bastard, but he’d saved their lives and spirited the hostages away from the king. Plus, if he could be persuaded to talk, Hal was sure he’d have plenty to say.

  Had the king found out about the spymaster’s involvement in the attack on the capital? If so, what else did the king know?

  Then he noticed that Robert was smirking at him.

  “What?” he said.

  “I’m talking about General Karn,” Robert said, biting off a hunk of bread. “Not Lieutenant Karn.”

  “General Karn is dead?” Hal stared at him with mingled delight and disbelief. If there was a grave he would dance on, that was it.