Trading into Darkness

by C. M. Simpson

“It’s my fault, too. I didn’t know, either—and I didn’t notice.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  Ilias dipped the cloth again, rinsing it out before laying it over the wound. Roeglin groaned, and Marsh remembered how she’d felt after being hit by shadow claws.

  “We need Aisha,” she said, wondering if the little girl would be strong enough to deal with the poison on her own.

  Ilias looked at her.

  “She looks too young to be a trained healer.”

  Marsh shook her head.

  “She’s not; she uses magic to heal.”

  Now she had his attention.

  “Magic can heal?”

  “Yes.” Marsh wished she had scars to show him from her own run-in with a shadow monster, but the magical healing she’d received from both Aisha and Lennie hadn’t left any. Apparently, when a healer thought about how someone should look uninjured, that was pretty much how they ended up…and she hoped Aisha never realized the implications.

  “How?”

  Marsh hung her head.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’ve never tried?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  It was a good question. After all, wasn’t she the one who’d asked why a shadow guard had never tried to fix the things he broke? She stared at Ilias, and he stared back. Roeglin moved restlessly in his sleep, his face flushed, and Ilias gestured toward him.

  “Even a little bit would help.”

  Marsh sighed, trapped by her own thoughts—and haunted by the Master of Beast’s revelation: “Not everyone can do every kind of magic.” She’d already found it was true for her and charging the glows. Ilias nudged her.

  “It’s okay if you can’t.”

  Marsh shook her head.

  “It’s not that. It’s just that I don’t know if I can.”

  “Only one way to find out.”

  And there he was, pushing her. Marsh scowled. He was also right. She hated it when the folk giving her a shove were right. Hated letting them down even more.

  “No doubts…”

  It was more a whisper than anything else, but Marsh heard it echoing through her mind.

  “Won’t work…with doubt.”

  They both turned toward the bed. Roeglin’s eyes were glowing with faint wisps of white, and sweat sheened his forehead. As they watched, the white faded and his eyes drifted closed.

  “Try…” was barely a sound, but Marsh heard it clearly in her head.

  Ilias looked at her, and Marsh drew a deep breath and let it slowly out.

  “Let’s do this thing,” she said, injecting as much confidence into her voice as she could. “You want ta give it a whirl?”

  “Me?”

  “Sure, why not? You’ve never done magic before?”

  “Never thought to try.”

  “It’s easy, like opening a gate. Someone once told me that everyone had the ability.”

  “But how?”

  “Take a deep breath, understand that you can, and let the magic know what you need it to do.”

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  Marsh gave him a feral grin and used his own words against him.

  “You won’t know until you try.”

  There’s my girl.

  It worried her that this time she only heard Roeglin’s voice in her head, and even then, it still sounded thready, but the pride she heard there… The absolute confidence…

  She turned to Ilias.

  “We can do this,” she told him, and together, they looked at the wound.

  For a moment Marsh thought she might be imagining things, because it looked much worse than it had when she’d watch Ilias bathe it a few moments ago. The medic caught her look.

  “Shadow poison,” he said. “Once it takes hold, it’s very difficult to defeat.”

  There was something she hadn’t needed to know before trying a brand-new kind of magic.

  Quit stalling!

  For a man as sick as he was, Roeglin was awfully chatty. Fine.

  Marsh made herself take a good close look at the deep slice the raider had made in his shoulder.

  “We need to pull the poison out of that, right?”

  “Oui.”

  “I’ll start with that. It comes from the shadows, and I can talk to the shadows, so this part I should be able to do.”

  “And what do I do?”

  Marsh thought about what Aisha and Lennie had both said.

  “You know how that should look when it’s healthy. Picture that in your mind and ask the magic to fix it.”

  “Just like that?”

  Marsh thought about scolding him but figured he didn’t need to know that his doubt could stop him. Instead, she gave him a nod. When she replied, she offered him absolute confidence.

  “Oui—just like that. Ready?”

  “Oui.”

  Ilias looked down at the wound, but Marsh was already reaching into the shadows. If she was honest with herself, she didn’t have a clue what shadow poison might look like, but it was killing Roeglin, which meant…

  She had to be the biggest idiot in all the Deeps!

  Dropping the shadow threads, she pulled on the magic that helped her sense the life around her, but this time she focused it on Roeglin’s life force. She didn’t just want to see if it was there; she already knew that. She wanted to see…

  Marsh hesitated. What did she want to see? She felt the magic waver in her grasp and scrambled for an answer, wishing she had someone to guide her. But she didn’t, and Roeglin needed her, so… What was it she needed to see?

  The poison. And how did seeing a life force help with that? Ha! Because the poison weakened it, nibbled at the edges, and she’d know what to ask the shadows to help her find. She’d also know when she had a grasp on it because she’d be able to see it when it left the wound.

  Finding her focus was easy when she knew what to look for. Looking at a life force this way was different than just finding out if one was there. It was more…intricate, like looking at a map of the caverns—and the poison was everywhere.

  There were thin tendrils of it spreading out from Roeglin’s shoulder down into his chest and up into his head. It was a wonder he could talk to her. Marsh concentrated, feeling the rush of power as she reached for the shadow she could see within the poison. Shadow, right?

  The wound connected the shadows in Roeglin’s blood to the shadows in the room. Marsh wondered what it would be like to wield a blade of poisoned shadow, to call all that deadliness to her hand. What would it be like to have it protect her instead of threatening those she loved?

  If she could pull the shadows to her hand…

  Marsh focused, her heart thundering as she called the shadow poison out of Roeglin’s body. She held her hand out, watching through a blend of shadow and life as the dark threads inside the shadow mage wove their way out of his head and away from his heart until they made it back to his shoulder, then flowed through the air to her hand.

  She remembered one very important thing at that moment.

  Shadow poison was a poison, and it harmed on contact!

  “Merde!” she whispered as the darkness she had called coalesced into a short, thick-bladed dagger. She realized she couldn’t release it to the shadows around her or it would harm anyone who came into the room.

  She should have just left it to pool. It was poison, right? It came out as a liquid, a sticky substance. She could just wipe it off. Looking around the room, she saw nothing she could use, except for the clean blanket on Roeglin’s bed. Marsh hesitated. Who knew what it would do to the blanket?

  The skin on her palm started to burn, and Marsh decided the blanket was a better place for it than her flesh. She leaned over and dropped the blade on the bed, dismissing the shadows she had called from the room and commanding the shadowed poison to find a home among the blanket’s threads.

  All of it, she insisted when some of it wanted to cling to her hand. All.

/>   It left, settling onto the blanket, which was whisked away as soon as the last of the residue had flowed from her palm. She could still feel the burn of it and she felt mildly ill, but it didn’t matter. The poison was gone, and Roeglin breathed easier. Beside the bed, Ilias sat, staring at his own hands and looking at the clean, whole skin on the shadow mage’s shoulder.

  “How did you know?” he asked, catching Marsh’s eye.

  “Know what?”

  “That I could do that?”

  Marsh gave him a long look, thinking about how to reply. In the end, she decided to go with the truth.

  “I didn’t.”

  Ilias’ jaw dropped. “You didn’t?”

  “No, but I knew the stories, and I hoped, because you’re a medic for a reason, right? You chose it, didn’t you?”

  Ilias nodded.

  “I always wanted to heal.”

  “So, a big part of the magic seems to be that the person wants to wield it. The other part is that they have a need to.” She indicated Roeglin, who now slept, the sweat drying on his face and his color returning to normal. “Tell me, could you have saved him without it?”

  Ilias’ face reddened, and he looked down at the floor.

  “No,” he admitted. “Never have been able to save anyone poisoned by the beasts. First time I’ve ever seen it delivered by a blade, though.”

  Anger burned through Marsh, and she sat on the end of the bed. Before she could say anything, Ilias spoke again.

  “How did you do it?”

  Marsh explained what she’d done with the shadows; how she’d sensed the life force and then read it, and how she’d called the poison out of the wound.

  “It’s not shadow, you know?” he said when she’d finished, and Marsh felt her skin go pale.

  “Not even a little bit?”

  Her voice sounded plaintive even to her, and a small smile curved the medic’s lips.

  “No, but if that’s what you needed so you could see it and pull it out of there, I’m glad you did.”

  “Not shadow?” Marsh’s voice shook. “Then what is it?”

  Ilias shrugged.

  “You’ll have to ask one of the rock mages,” he said, “or an apothecary; someone who knows medicines and poisons.” He paused. “I’ll do it the next time I talk to one of mine.”

  Marsh was glad she was sitting on the edge of the bed because she didn’t think her legs could hold her. What had she done?

  “Found another kind of magic.” Roeglin’s voice was weak, but amusement lurked in its depths. “And then blended it with shadow magic to make it work. Tell me, how do you feel?”

  Marsh looked at him, puzzled as to why he would ask—and he repeated the question.

  “How do you feel?”

  It took Marsh a moment to realize that she didn’t feel as fatigued as she usually did. She felt more alive and awake than ever.

  “I feel great,” she said and Roeglin smiled, turning his attention to the medic.

  “And you, Ilias?”

  “Good.”

  “Energized?”

  “Yes! Like…I don’t know… Like I’ve had a good night’s sleep.”

  Marsh put her hand on her hip and cocked her head.

  “When was the last time that happened?”

  Ilias laughed.

  “Not for a very long time, young lady. A very long time. It was like the magic came from around me, good, clean energy that healed what it touched. I just imagined what the injury would look like whole, and the magic came.” He sobered, his face growing serious as he fixed her with a thoughtful look. “You said anyone could do magic?”

  Marsh swallowed. She wasn’t about to tell him she’d lied.

  “Oui…”

  “So, my people, my staff—they could do this, too?”

  Marsh bowed her head, biting her lip as she realized she really would have to tell him the truth. She raised her head to look him in the eye.

  “Some will be able to do this, but it’s like singing or fighting or running. Some folks are better at it than others, and some can do one kind of magic better than they can do others, while some struggle to do any at all.”

  Ilias stared at her in shock.

  “You’re joking.” He glanced down at Roeglin. “Tell me she’s joking!”

  The shadow mage shook his head.

  “No, but she couldn’t exactly tell you that before you tried or the magic might not have come at all. The main thing you need, even if you can call magic, is the belief that you can do it. No doubts.”

  Ilias opened his mouth, angry color suffusing his face, but Roeglin kept talking.

  “The way you feel now means you have found the magic that best suits you.” He glanced at Marsh. “Or one of them.”

  Marsh returned his glance. One of them? Did he mean to make it sound like she was one of the few who’d learned to wield more than one? She caught his slight nod that indicated that was exactly what he meant, but Ilias still had questions.

  “How do I know which of my people can heal? Or what they can do?”

  “You’ll just have to ask them to try,” Roeglin told him, and a look of sheer mischief crossed his face. “Much like you did with my trainee here.”

  Ilias looked shocked, and his face flushed.

  “Master Leger, I…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…” He stopped when Roeglin laid a hand on his arm.

  “You did nothing wrong,” he said. “Sometimes a master misses the potential simply because he hasn’t thought of it.”

  “All the same, I—”

  Roeglin cut him off, again.

  “How often has magic been seen in these caverns?” he asked. “Think about it.”

  The medic stilled. He was quiet for a moment, but Marchant knew he was thinking the same thing she was. Until recently, magic had only been used by the shadow mages and the rock wizards, although very few knew of them and they’d been particularly secretive in the last few years.

  “Not often,” Ilias replied. “There have been one or two, but they’ve either joined the monastery or…or they’ve left.”

  “Yes,” Roeglin told him, “and now I have to wonder where they went.”

  It was a matter they’d have to pursue another time, because Marsh heard the clatter of hooves in the yard outside, and Roeglin swung himself out of bed. He caught Marchant’s blush as she turned away.

  “I’ll need some clothes.”

  “And I’ll check downstairs,” Marchant added, hurriedly thinking of an excuse to leave. “See if Captain Guillemot has anything he wants me to do.”

  Her face flamed as she left, Roeglin’s smug chuckle not helping.

  23

  Orelia’s Return

  When Marsh arrived downstairs, Captain Guillemot was standing behind a chair at the dining room table, his attention drawn by the arrival of his men. Around him, another half-dozen members of the squad were on their feet, their attention divided between him and the sounds outside. The captain spared a glance for Marsh and returned his attention to the Protector who had beaten her through the door.

  “Who is it?” he demanded.

  “Captain Orelia sends his regards, sir, and requests your hospitality.”

  Captain Guillemot replied as surprise sent shockwaves through Marsh. Orelia had been the name of the captain who’d gone after the raiders and the missing slaves. That he was back so soon didn’t bode well for his success. As hard as it was, she forced herself to silence, waiting for the captain’s reply and not missing the glance he threw her way.

  “I’ll go,” he said and headed for the door.

  “Come with me,” he added, speaking to Marsh as he passed her, and then he looked a little beyond her. “You, too.”

  Marsh turned her head and saw Roeglin coming down the stairs. He was alone, and Marsh wondered where Ilias was.

  “I’m not his only patient.”

  Ah, well, that explained it. Marsh waited until he came alongside her before following Captain Guillem
ot. The captain didn’t wait, nor did the four men wearing the insignia that indicated they were higher in rank than most of the others.

  Lieutenants, Roeglin provided. They’ll go to see what changes with Orelia’s arrival, and then they’ll take his orders to the rest.

  Marsh studied the insignia, hoping to remember it the next time she saw it. Roeglin tapped her on the shoulder, and she realized she’d stopped.

  “You’re holding up the party, Trainee,” he told her, and she resisted the urge to slap his shoulder in return.

  Decorum, right?

  And discipline, Roeglin added, like she needed reminding, then, catching her thought, he added, You mean you don’t?

  Marsh felt her cheeks color but didn’t dignify his quip with an answer. There were other things she had to pay attention to.

  If Roeglin had any thoughts on that, he kept them to himself, and they hurried after the captain, catching up as he addressed the new arrivals. Captain Orelia had remained mounted, as had his men, even though they were clearly exhausted.

  Rules of hospitality, Roeglin explained. He’s making sure he’s welcome.

  What would he do if he wasn’t?

  He’d keep riding until he reached the next farm.

  Looking at the troops, Marchant wasn’t sure they could. Their mules’ heads drooped, and the animals’ hides were covered with dust and sweat. Every line of their bodies was etched with exhaustion, and so were their riders. The men sat slumped in their saddles, although those closest to their captain were doing their best to sit upright and look alert.

  They succeeded, but their tiredness was apparent. Captain Guillemot’s reaction showed he understood the situation. Marsh assumed there was some sort of traditional dialogue expected between the two captains, and that Guillemot skipped it.

  “Welcome, Francis. If you and your men will follow Lieutenants Gier and Solange, they’ll show you where to sleep. Lieutenants Bairdie and Dieter will see to your mules.”

  “You are too kind,” Orelia began, “but—

  His fellow captain cut him off.

  “But nothing, Captain. Unless it will affect our security, you can brief me when you’ve eaten and rested.”

  Captain Orelia subsided.

  “I have nothing of immediate note to report, and place my men in your care,” he said, and slowly swung himself out of his saddle. “Thank you, Captain.”