Lord of Secrets

by Breanna Teintze

  ‘No, stop!’ I had to keep his attention on me. ‘I’ll tell you,’ I said. ‘Leave her alone.’

  He turned back to me, grinning at the urgency that had leaked into my voice. ‘I’m waiting.’

  Another flick of the knife, this time against my eyebrow. Another drop of blood.

  ‘And I’m cooperating.’ I fought the desire to twist away. I needed to scratch one more character on the wall behind me. ‘I just want a representative from the Guildhouse here, first. The law entitles me to that. Magic is their jurisdiction, not yours.’

  ‘Jurisdiction?’ The priest’s nostrils twitched, and he smiled. ‘Over a man using their precious incantations to rob the gods? Do you really think the Guild will care what happens to you, as long as you end up dead?’

  ‘No, I know they won’t.’ I wasn’t going to be able to distract him another way. What he wanted was blood and fear. I’d have to give it to him. I swallowed and allowed my voice to tremble. ‘Please. Don’t hurt me. I’ll do what you want.’

  ‘I know you will.’ He brought the blade to rest against my chin and licked his lips. ‘I suppose you think you’re brave? Most of them do.’

  ‘No.’ As I spoke, my finger traced the last symbol. ‘Just very good at writing things down without looking at them.’

  He blinked, startled. He was, I suppose, expecting something else. Pleading, maybe. Instead, I pronounced the spell.

  The symbols under my hand lit with red fire and rose into the air, the light coming together in the fluttering form of a bat. It flew straight to the priest’s neck and latched on. He twisted, slapping at it, his fingers passing through its body. The priest twitched for a moment and then fell, first to his knees and then prone on the floor.

  The woman stared at me. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Hush.’ I moved to the table, scanning the mess of tools on it as quickly as I could.

  ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘No, dazed. Now be quiet – my head still hurts and I’m trying to be efficient.’ I located another filthy blade. It took a bit of manoeuvring, but I managed to saw the cord around my wrists over the blade until it parted. I shook out my tingling hands. My mouth tasted sick and metallic with the remnants of the incantation I had thrown at the priest. The toxicity was going to hit hard. I didn’t have much time.

  ‘How did you do it?’ She was whispering. ‘I thought wizards had to have special paint to cast spells.’

  ‘You can see that I didn’t.’ I pulled my sleeves down over my wrists, grabbed my satchel and slung it across my shoulder. ‘Paint helps, but all you need is something that will ensure that the runes stay the right shape long enough to pronounce them.’ I bent over the priest. ‘A more detailed answer will take weeks, and I doubt very much if you’d understand even then.’

  She glared at me. ‘Prick. You think nobody else knows anything about magic?’

  ‘At the moment it seems more relevant whether somebody knows where the key is.’ I pawed through the priest’s dirty vestments. ‘He has to have one, right? Or the guards wouldn’t have left him alone with us?’

  She opened her eyes wide, mocking. ‘Are you asking me whether I saw where he put it? Even though I’m too stupid to understand paint? It’s on a cord around his neck, sirrah.’

  I found the key ring, yanked it free and straightened. ‘Listen, I need to know. Did you get into Jaern-temple, or did the priest really plant the icon on you? Lord Toy-With-Me over there is going to wake up soon, so I suggest you answer quickly.’

  Her tongue passed over her lower lip. ‘What if I did?’

  ‘I am interested. I will bargain.’ I held up the keys. ‘I’m going to let you out. In return, you’re going to get me into that temple long enough for me to get at the books. Agreed?’

  ‘Why?’ She did not appear to understand how short our time was. ‘I’ve got no reason to help you. I don’t even know your name. What’s in the books?’

  ‘Nothing that would be useful to you. A list.’ I glanced towards the priest. If this went on much longer, I’d have to find a way to tie him up. ‘You do realise that they’re going to cut your head off if I don’t let you go?’

  ‘And you evidently can’t get into the temple without me.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘As far as I can see, I have something you need. A list of what?’

  I moved to the door. One of the keys on the ring unlocked it, but I had no way of knowing what was on the other side. Had the guards gone back to the shack in the courtyard, or were they down the hall in some other cell?

  ‘Wizard,’ she said.

  ‘My name is not “wizard”.’ I opened the door a crack, listening. ‘It’s Gray. Corcoran Gray. Are you delaying on purpose, or . . . ?’

  ‘Whatever you call yourself.’ She sounded irritatingly calm for someone who was haggling for her life. ‘If you want my help, you’ll tell me what you’re really after. I don’t think you have a choice about this.’

  I could hear nothing in the hallway, not that I would unless I got her to stop babbling. My knee was starting to send warning twinges up my thigh. If I waited much longer, it would start to stiffen up, and then I’d be magic-sick and slow. I had to resolve this, now. I forced myself to think through everything I knew about her, systematically. There had to be something I could use for leverage.

  ‘You’re not a temple acolyte,’ I said, slowly, ‘or you’d at least have sandals, yet you know the temple and the countersigns well enough to circumvent the wards. And the priest was able to track you, in the rain, without dogs.’

  ‘So?’ She was once again doing an almost-convincing impression of someone who wasn’t afraid.

  ‘So a Temples slave would know all of those things.’ I scanned her body. No earrings. No nose ring. The navel, maybe? ‘That’s why they’re forced to wear trackers. A piece of jewellery, usually. Magically applied, and difficult to remove unless you know what you’re doing.’ I paused, met her eyes. ‘I know what I’m doing.’

  I was offering freedom, of a sort. We were in an urban part of the provinces, not the wild border country where slavers were allowed to hunt anyone who wandered. If she stayed in towns, she might be able to live a decent life, even without the expensive official papers that would have ensured her legal status as a freewoman.

  Her jaw tightened. ‘You’re saying you can take it off? Make it so they can’t find me again?’

  ‘Yes. I unlock you, you get me into the temple and then I unbind your tracker. In that order, to keep everyone honest.’ I held up the key. ‘Do we have a bargain, or not?’

  She swung her wrists towards me. ‘Yes. Just hurry, Corcoran.’

  ‘Finally.’ I grabbed her chain and began trying one key after another. ‘Call me “Gray”, not the other. And you’re supposed to tell me what your name is after I tell you mine. That’s the way it’s done in polite society.’

  The manacles opened for the third key. She drew her wrists out. ‘Do you have a plan to get us out of here?’

  I dug through my satchel. ‘How about an alias? I would be content with an alias. It gets inconvenient just calling someone “you”.’

  ‘Brix. My name is Brix.’ A wrinkle appeared between her eyebrows. ‘You’re a very strange person.’

  ‘It’s part of my charm.’ I found a scrap of parchment, a mostly-empty wineskin and a pencil. ‘How would you like to be invisible?’

  Two

  The prison was only a hallway with a half-dozen cells, empty except for one snoring drunk. Brix had grasped a handful of my sleeve as soon as I finished the spell and led me and my newly-revived headache towards the courtyard. The two guards were once again at their post, shielded from the afternoon rain by the thatched roof of their booth.

  ‘Ugly little snit,’ one was saying, as we approached. ‘I don’t know why Lord Fenwydd puts up with him.’

  ‘Because Halling has my lord convinced he has a bridle on the gods.’ The guard opened a pouch and took out a pinch of shan leaves before offering it to his friend, who also t
ook a pinch. They both chewed solemnly.

  ‘I suppose we should look in on him.’

  The second shook his head. ‘Gods, no. He won’t be even halfway finished yet, even if the prisoners are talking. It’ll be bad enough cleaning up later.’

  The pressure of Brix’s grip made me move forwards, following her through the shadow along one side of the wall. We exited the courtyard and found ourselves confronted by a broad, muddy square. It must have been market day, with carts of vegetables hulking amid a crowd of people, goats and a pair of women selling pastries. Luckily the soldier guarding the doorway we had just emerged from was occupied in talking to a girl with a baby on her hip, and we got past him without any trouble.

  I spied a nook behind a pastry stand, some twenty feet away, that would offer shelter from prying eyes. Brix let go of me and I grasped at the air for a minute until I caught her clothes. The startled squeak she gave made the soldier look up from his conversation, confused. Time to go.

  I held on and hustled her towards the pastry stand as quickly as I could. When we reached it, I crouched between the stand and the city wall and yanked her down beside me. The owner of the stand was hawking her wares closer to the street, in a raucous sing-song that would have drowned out a trumpeter.

  ‘Look for an inconspicuous path,’ I said. ‘Our footprints will show if the mud is too deep.’

  ‘What?’ Brix’s hand found mine, trying to pry my fingers from the cloth I had grabbed. ‘Let go. I find it hard to concentrate when a man has a handful of the seat of my trousers.’

  I let go and jerked my hand back to myself, glad she couldn’t see me blush. How had I managed that? All I could find to mumble was: ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No matter,’ Brix said. ‘You didn’t aim for it. Will the spell last until nightfall, you think? I don’t see very many places we can move without leaving tracks in the mud. I suppose we could keep along the wall.’

  Keeping along the wall sounded good to me, but I still didn’t know how I was going to survive until I could get outside it. The runes I had washed off the parchment were sloshing around in my stomach, mixed with wine and bile. I hiccupped, and grimaced at the acrid taste in my mouth. The magic was finishing, too quickly. Invisibility has an unpredictable duration, but it shouldn’t have been this unpredictable. It had been a mistake, using the spell again before I had recovered from the last time.

  ‘I don’t think we should wait,’ I said. ‘The spell is degrading. Breaking up, I mean.’

  ‘Where are you?’ Brix’s fingers stabbed me in the knee. They stopped there, grasping the hard outlines of the copper-and-leather brace I wear on my left leg. It fits under my trousers, I don’t limp unless I’m very tired and usually people don’t notice it. ‘What in the world . . . ?’

  No, I wasn’t going to answer questions about that. I grabbed her hand and carried it away from the brace. ‘Look, could we get on with it? Now you have my hand, and I have your hand, and neither of us needs to go fondling the other.’

  Which wasn’t quite fair, but it did shut her up.

  She changed her grip, sliding her hand up until it was wrapped around my sleeve cuff; I gripped her wrist in turn. We got to our feet. I let her drag me along the wall at a trot. My headache was worsening, though not as quickly as I would have expected. More troubling was the snake of light that kept pulsing across my field of vision. I must not have written my shielding runes perfectly.

  Brix led me away from the main road into the alley behind an inn. A short distance away stood the inn’s stable, filled with yokels shouting to each other. Each noise seemed to hook into the back of my eyes.

  I halted, only to have Brix pull on my wrist again.

  ‘Don’t let go of me,’ she said. ‘I’ll never find you again.’

  I wasn’t about to let go of her; I could barely see. I dug my heels in. ‘I need to stop.’

  ‘We can’t.’ She tugged. ‘We have to find a safe place, or they’ll find us again. You have to keep going.’

  ‘But—’ I bent at the waist and threw up.

  ‘Hells!’ Brix didn’t let go of me, though I think she jumped backwards. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘I’m bloody invisible,’ I snapped. ‘It hurts. I want to sit down.’

  Behind us, a cacophony of distant bells erupted. Light exploded through my head. I gasped and stumbled, just managing to miss putting a knee in the puke puddle. ‘Listen—’ My tongue felt thick. I couldn’t make it say what I wanted it to. When I tried, a weird groan came out.

  ‘Those are the prison bells. They know we’re gone.’ She yanked, trying to heft me back up on to my feet. ‘We’ve got to go. Now!’

  ‘Right.’ It took all my concentration to get the word out. I let her put my arm around her shoulders and staggered along beside her. We went through a maze of tiny lanes, finally coming to another inn, this one not prosperous enough to possess a stable. One horse and three donkeys were tied to a railing in front of the three-storey house. We made our way past the donkeys and paused behind the row of buildings.

  I peered down the alley, trying to think past the jagged pain rolling around in my head. ‘What are we doing?’

  ‘You said you needed to stop, I’m finding you a place to stop.’ She dragged me forwards. ‘If you don’t like this, we have to find somewhere else. A barn or—’

  ‘Not another barn,’ I said.

  ‘Well, we’d better choose soon.’ Brix held up my hand, and I could see the ghostly outline of her fingers wrapped around my forearm. ‘We’re getting visible again.’

  ‘Something is wrong with the damn spell.’ I shook myself loose of her, irritated. ‘Aren’t you uncomfortable? You should at least have a headache from the runes I made you swallow.’

  ‘I do have a headache,’ she said.

  A bad smell coursed over me. I was out of time; in another moment I wouldn’t be able to walk. I went down the alley as quickly as I could.

  Brix followed. ‘What’s happening? What’s wrong?’

  I found a notch where the walls of two brick buildings met each other and curled myself into it, sinking to my knees on the dirty cobbles, overwhelmed by the stench I knew was only inside my head. I wanted to say something, warn her what to expect, but my jaw was already tightening. I lost what was left of my vision.

  The rest of it I don’t remember.

  *

  Hours later I came back to myself, blinking in the light of a red sunset. My head still throbbed, but the pain was bearable now. I must have slept. I’m always exhausted after a seizure.

  I had been propped up to sit against the wall. Brix sat next to me, her knees drawn up to her chest. When I lifted my head, she turned towards me. ‘Awake?’

  ‘Barely.’ I tried to decide how bad the seizure had been. It had been months since I’d had one, and I had been hoping I had discovered the right combination of shielding magic to prevent them.

  ‘What happened?’ Her voice was quiet. ‘I thought you were dog meat.’

  ‘It’s nothing.’ I rubbed my eyes. ‘A seizure, a kind of reaction to the spell. Invisibility is more toxic than most incantations. I shouldn’t have tried it twice in such a short amount of time, but I don’t know what other choice we had.’

  She studied me, a small frown between her eyebrows. ‘I don’t want you to die before you get my tracker off.’

  ‘I said I’d take it off, and I don’t intend to die and renege.’ I glanced up at the sky, where the sunset was already fading. ‘Speaking of, how long have we been here? Halling will eventually remember he can use the tracker and divine for you. We should get moving.’

  Her arms moved instinctively, clasping over her belly. ‘Why don’t you just take it off me now, if you’re so worried?’

  ‘Because that wasn’t the agreement.’ I paused. ‘Look, I need to get into the temple. You promised me you could do that. If you were lying, just tell me now and we’ll go our separate ways.’

  ‘I wasn’t lying,’ she said, b
etween her teeth. ‘My contract used to be held by Jaern-temple in Karrad. The priest there was old. He mumbled the patterns to himself when he unlocked things every day so nobody would realise he was half-blind. It took me a long time, but I memorised what he did. Then he died, they shipped me here and I thought I’d have to start all over. But I didn’t. This temple is built on the same pattern as the one in Karrad, it’s just a little smaller. And the liturgy is identical – same wards, same countersigns.’

  ‘Are you telling me that as long as you know the countersigns, you can just walk into Jaern-temple – any Jaern-temple – whenever you want?’ She nodded. I let out a low whistle. ‘So you took more from them than just a few icons. No wonder Halling came after you.’ I frowned. ‘But if you worked for his temple and you’re wearing that tracker, why did he act like he didn’t know you back in the barn?’

  ‘I only got here three days ago. He’s barely seen me. At first, I said I was sick, hid in the slaves’ quarters, but I knew eventually I had to . . .’ She stared down at the cobblestones, expressionless. ‘You saw what kind of a man Halling is. What he likes to do to people.’ Her hands tightened in the fabric of her shirt, twisting, white-knuckled. ‘The tracker is just a copper ring. It doesn’t look that strong. I thought if I stole a couple of icons, I could bribe a blacksmith to take it off, have a chance to get away. His tinsnips broke on it. You can really take it off?’

  ‘Of course tinsnips broke,’ I said. ‘It’s held on with a spell, not with the metal itself. I have to do another spell to remove it.’ I paused. Her desperation made sense, but there was something happening behind her eyes that I couldn’t interpret, a deeper layer of fear and calculation. ‘I’ll teach you the incantation, if you like,’ I hazarded.

  ‘What? No.’ She shot me a startled glance, as though I had offered to strip naked and dance. ‘Just see that you keep your end of the bargain, and I’ll keep mine.’ She stood and smoothed her shirt with trembling fingers. ‘Last time it took them six hours to find me. That gives us a little time. Let’s go.’