Lord of Secrets

by Breanna Teintze

  A bead of sweat rolled down my spine. It was hot; not all of the fire was trickery.

  I waited, holding the wall of fire between me and them, even though I could feel the shielding runes starting to degrade. If they looked back, I had to keep the illusion strong. I reached out with the spell for their minds. One of them would look back. Someone always did.

  It was the one who had been running the illumination spell, just before they turned the corner to get out of the alley. The orange glow from the flames outlined his face as I gave the spell one final push.

  Boom.

  He stumbled to his knees, then clawed his way to his feet and sprinted away from the explosion that had rocked the alley . . . in his mind, anyway.

  I held the illusion for a count of thirty after the last one had disappeared from my view. Then I let it drop and ran to Brix.

  She hadn’t moved, but was still breathing, barely. I kneeled beside her and sorted through my satchel with trembling fingers.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ My voice was ragged in my ears. I could hardly see. Where were my paints?

  I finally found the case of vials and had to scribble the same stupid illumination spell that the apprentices had used on to the pavement next to her head. Once I had light, I opened her robe, searching frantically for enough skin to work with. I tried to preserve her modesty, but I had to write the runes where they would do some good. I unlaced the collar of her shirt and then stopped, startled.

  Dark blue tattoos spread under her collarbones and out towards her shoulders. They were runes, rows upon rows of them, and nobody should have been able to carry that many spells without the toxicity burning through to their bones.

  ‘You’re Tirnaal,’ I said. Her eyes were fixed on the spot behind me. She couldn’t look at me, had lost even that much control. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, again, hurriedly pulling her shirt up to cover the runes. ‘It’s going to be all right.’

  I uncorked the vial of green paint and started scribing across her shoulders, above the delicate edges of her collarbone.

  There’s no way to deactivate a specific spell, but you can ruin the ley – the ability for spells to take hold – in a small area, for a limited amount of time. If I did that, the paralysis would break. With the wizard who had cast it gone, Brix wouldn’t have to worry about the spell coming back. Of course, wrecking the ley would deactivate all the magic in the alleyway, including the protective sigils on me. Still, I didn’t see what choice I had.

  The ley-breaker required thirty-six characters. I had written thirty when the knife pricked the soft skin beneath the right side of my jaw.

  ‘Don’t move,’ said a man’s voice, ‘or I’ll kill you.’

  ‘Let me finish,’ I said. ‘Then you can kill me.’

  A soft laugh, and a hand took hold of my left ear. ‘I saw what you did to those apprentices just now, wizard. You think I’m going to let you write what you want? Get your hands up, where I can see them.’

  I lifted my hands out away from my body, wet paintbrush still between my fingers. I couldn’t see Brix’s chest moving anymore. ‘Please,’ I said. My chest heaved as though I was trying to breathe for both of us. ‘Please. She’s dying.’

  Silence. I’ve never heard one so long. Finally, the hand released my ear and took a grip on my collar. ‘Finish, then. But watch what you say – my knife is quicker than your tongue.’

  I finished the string of runes and pronounced them. They flared with blinding light. The ley-breaker was taking hold, and it was much stronger than it should have been. Something about her was . . . what, amplifying the magic? Making it go faster?

  My protective sigils went dark and then crumbled, going cold against my skin one by one. A wave of torment crushed me into the ground as the toxicity from all of the spells I had used in the fight roiled through my gut, poison pulsing up my spine.

  A stench worse than sewage surged through me. It was in my mouth, crawling down my throat, stretching to the very edges of my being.

  No.

  I think I said no.

  I know I didn’t moan until after I saw Brix sit up and gasp for air. I didn’t start to seize until I had fallen forwards into her arms.

  *

  Most of the time – when the gods are feeling merciful, I suppose – I don’t remember what happens during a seizure. But occasionally I’m aware enough to see myself, as though I am a hovering outsider, watching the thrashing mess on the floor, the cost of all my magical cleverness brought home to me.

  Brix held my arching body as best as she could, and screamed abuse at the man who had been standing behind me. He just stood there, knife in hand, watching. I couldn’t make out exactly what Brix was saying, couldn’t get past the buzz in my ears.

  Eventually the gabble coming from their mouths resolved itself into speech.

  ‘I’ll kill you.’ Brix spat the words. ‘Fix whatever you did to him, or I’ll kill you. Who in the hells are you, anyway?’

  ‘I didn’t do anything,’ he said.

  I tried to tell her it was all right, to tell her what the solution was, but my lips, heavy and far away from me, didn’t move. All that came out was a thick sound.

  Her breath puffed across my face – she must have been just inches from me. ‘Corcoran? Can you hear me?’

  ‘Lor . . .’ My lips went numb again.

  ‘What did you do?’ she shouted, presumably at him. ‘If he dies—’

  Oh, Neyar’s pups. This was getting out of hand. I grabbed frantically for consciousness, for the will to make my mouth do what I wanted it to.

  ‘Not – daying—’ That wasn’t right. I heaved myself away from Brix and sat up under my own power. ‘Dying. Not.’ I concentrated. ‘Lorican,’ I said. It took what seemed like another couple of minutes to get my neck to turn my head so I could see him. Or, at least, the smudge on the darkness that I thought was him. Damn ley-breaker had wrecked my illumination spell, too. Or there was something wrong with my vision . . . or both. ‘Corcoran – Gray. Acarius . . . grandson. Pleased . . .’ Just a few more words. This was like chewing mud. Come on. ‘Meet you.’

  ‘Gods,’ whispered Lorican.

  Nobody sounds that gutted when they don’t believe something. I had him. I let my eyes shut.

  ‘No. Don’t.’ Brix was close to me again. Cold fingertips were on my temples, pushing my hair back. ‘No, Gray, you’re going to stay awake.’

  She cupped her hands under my chin. Gods, that felt good. I had to sleep, though. If I could sleep, I wouldn’t have to feel the poison as it worked its way through me.

  ‘Sorry,’ I mumbled.

  Eight

  At some point they got me back inside the tavern through a kitchen door. All I really remember is getting hit with the stench of stale beer and puking on Lorican’s shoes, which I found satisfying. It was his fault, after all, that I’d been in that alley in the first place.

  We wound up in a little white-walled room off the kitchen, where Lorican said he slept. The closest thing to a bed that he could provide was a cot near the fire. I stretched out, grateful to be horizontal. Brix sat in a chair across the hearth from me, bolt upright, arms crossed.

  ‘Right.’ I heard Lorican’s voice, vaguely, as though someone had packed my ears with wool. ‘I’ll close the pub, and then we can talk.’

  I waited until his footsteps had faded, then got up on to one elbow and peered at Brix. ‘Are you all right? Breathing back to normal?’

  ‘Yes.’ Something strange rippled through her voice, like a vein of gold through quartz. ‘You saved me – again.’

  ‘Sorry.’ I had already said that, but it felt like I should repeat it. She didn’t seem all right.

  ‘It would be easier if you weren’t, Gray,’ she murmured. ‘I’ve never met a good man before. I’m not sure what to do with you.’

  ‘Hells, I am not a good man.’ I let my elbow slip out from under me and closed my eyes.

  When I woke up, it was daylight. Brix wasn’t there. Instead L
orican sat across from me, eating a bowl of something that smelled like fish stew. When I stirred, he straightened.

  ‘Awake?’ he said.

  ‘No, talking in my sleep, with my eyes open.’ The sarcasm was impolitic, I admit. But I was tired, and I hate it when people ask stupid questions.

  Lorican leaned back in his chair. I got the impression I was being studied, and that it wasn’t turning out very well for me. ‘That thing on your wrist,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think they could be faked.’

  I ran my thumb across the silver sigil and felt my pulse throb beneath it. It was yet another thing that Acarius and I had disagreed about. It made it easier to find work, safer. Acarius still hadn’t wanted me to get it, had insisted that it would only make the charges worse if the Guild got hold of me.

  ‘They can’t, really,’ I said. ‘A Guild wizard could tell the difference between this and a real one, given enough time. I just don’t give them time.’

  ‘Aye, I saw that.’ He ran his knuckles across the scrubby beard on his chin. ‘You fight like Acarius. I should have guessed you were related to him, but the tattoo threw me. Dangerous, that magic of yours.’ He picked up a stick from the bucket of kindling beside the fireplace and used it to push the unlaced cuff of my sleeve upwards. My forearm was a mess, smeared with dried blood and the remnants of alchemical paint. ‘Hurts, I would think.’

  I batted the stick away. ‘Sometimes.’ I wasn’t going to get any more sleep; my nerves were too jumpy. I sat up and held still for a few seconds, waiting for the dizziness. It didn’t come. So the shielding runes had taken a majority of the poison, before I had deactivated them. Interesting. I hadn’t done anything different when I had scribed them, so the simplest explanation for their extra effectiveness was . . . Brix. Just like she had made the ley-breaker stronger. I really needed to talk to her. ‘Where’s the woman who was with me?’

  ‘I don’t think we’re done talking,’ Lorican said.

  I didn’t like this. Acarius thought Lorican was reliable, but the old man was in prison, and someone had helped Keir capture him. Of course, if Lorican had been wanting to hand me over to the Guild, it didn’t make much sense for him to have taken the knife away from my neck. But then again, I had an idea that Keir and the Guild proper weren’t always working in unison. The Examiner General and his group of conspirators probably weren’t all that interested in taking me to trial, if their goal really was to get out from under the Charter and seize power. It was always possible that Lorican was just supposed to keep me in one place until I could be neutralized.

  I got to my feet. ‘And I don’t think I care for people who poison my beer.’

  He grinned. ‘You’re the one with a spelldog mark on your wrist, showing up in my pub panicking about a five-pence bill and asking questions. You smelled wrong. I had to have time to find out who you were.’ He stretched long legs out in front of him, crossing booted ankles. The boots had cutwork tops. ‘It was trinity syrup, by the way,’ he said. ‘It wouldn’t have killed you, just put you to sleep long enough for me to ask around. And then you gave me a busy night for my trouble anyway, so I think we’re even.’

  I shook out my shoulders, irritation flickering in my muscles. ‘Can we stop this? I’m not a Guild spy. The only reason I’m here is that Acarius said you could help me get to the temple of Jaern. If you won’t, then I’ll leave. It’s as simple as that.’

  Lorican hadn’t moved. ‘They looked for Acarius’ friends for weeks after they caught him, you know.’

  It took a moment for it to sink in. ‘Are you implying that I would work for the Guild rats against my own grandfather?’

  ‘Men have betrayed their own blood before,’ he said. ‘Besides, you wouldn’t be working against him, necessarily. Maybe they offered you a deal, promised to let him go if you give them something they want.’ He shrugged. ‘Desperate people believe thin lies.’

  This wasn’t how I had pictured this conversation going. My lead was slipping through my fingers. If Lorican let me down, it was done. Ended. Acarius would die. I hadn’t even really asked him for help yet, and he already seemed poised to refuse.

  ‘I . . . am desperate.’ I stared at the fire, my fear slowly draining away into something darker. ‘I could disable you, I suppose.’ The words came out flat, quiet. ‘Paralysis. Not a demanding spell, as you saw; that boy could manage it. I wouldn’t have much time, but I work fast. With the proper runes scribed across your forehead, I don’t suppose your memories would be too difficult to crack.’ The flames twisted like dancers, caressing the log they were destroying. I kept my eyes on them, kept my mind on the problem. ‘But that would likely leave you mindblown. I can’t decide whether that’s something I could stomach.’

  But I knew, as I said it, that I couldn’t. A mindblown person isn’t a person at all. They’re just empty flesh, with no wit or memories to animate them. It would have meant taking a life, as surely as if I’d cut his throat.

  ‘Easy now, brat.’ He stood and put his bowl on the mantelpiece. There was a tone in his voice I couldn’t identify, a kind of gentleness that didn’t belong. ‘Acarius saved my life. I owe him a blood debt, and that’s something I take seriously. You won’t get to the temple without my help. The Erranter that live around it don’t like outsiders.’

  ‘You’re Erranter?’ I said, frowning. He certainly had the look of one of the Walking People, with elaborate braids and a broad, flat nose. But it didn’t make sense that he was so settled. Erranter typically worshipped the sun-goddess Linna, Lady of Change, and they believed personal property was mostly a snare for the sinful. I had never heard of one impious enough to own a tavern. ‘How in the hells did you meet Acarius?’

  ‘As far as the city militia are concerned, I’m Erranter enough to shake down twice a month,’ he said, dryly. ‘Acarius and I met a long time ago, travelling. I had bad luck, he gave me my life back, and that’s all you need to know. The point is, I’ll help you. I just had to be sure of you.’

  I let my breath out, disorientated by the sudden wave of relief that burst over me. ‘Brat. Why can’t anyone ever call me by my name?’

  Lorican made an odd sound, something between a cough and a sneeze. ‘Gods. Didn’t realise it was a touchy subject.’

  Was the bastard laughing at me? I flushed. ‘It isn’t. If we’re done here, I want to talk to Brix – where is she?’

  He hooked one thumb at a door across the room from us. ‘The kitchen, washing her hair or some such. Said she got muck in it, during that tussle in the alley. By the way, you’re Acarius’ grandson, but who is she?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Certainly not your colleague. She’s no wizard, Guild or otherwise.’

  ‘A friend,’ I said. It was the only thing I could think of that was vague enough. ‘She has special knowledge. She’s helping me.’

  He crossed his arms. ‘You’ll want to be sure of your friends. The Guildhouse in Ri Dana seats thirty-five wizards. Those boys you let live will have told their masters some story, even if they think you’re dead. If the Guild is looking for you the way they were looking for Acarius—’

  ‘They won’t find me,’ I said.

  ‘Why did you let them go?’ He cocked his head sideways, curious. ‘Three rats attack you in an alley, you’re clearly their match, so why not finish them? Because it seems to me that guarantees they will find you.’

  Because they had been so afraid. Because I had been so afraid. Because I didn’t want to be that sort of person. But showing feelings was always a mistake. It just meant displaying a bruise that the other person could push on.

  ‘Because they were just kids,’ I said, ‘and stupid kids at that, and because the story they will report is that a rogue wizard blew himself up behind your alley. That illusion I did was a good one – you saw it yourself. It’s unlikely that they’ll come searching for my body, I think.’

  ‘Aye,’ Lorican said. ‘So you say. But every fool knows that wizards lie.’

  I forced my jaw to relax. ‘Then wh
at’s the point of asking me questions?’

  He smiled. ‘No point at all. Although I would like to know more about what Acarius thought I could do for you. Why do you want to go to the old temple?’

  ‘He seemed to think you could help me get an artefact of the god Jaern,’ I said. ‘I imagine you’d find such a thing in a temple, although if you happen to know a good shop—’

  ‘I was afraid of that.’ Even the hostile smile faded now. ‘After the trouble last year Acarius said nobody would need to go there ever again.’ He crossed his arms. ‘What changed?’

  ‘Last year?’ I said. ‘What happened last year?’

  Lorican’s eyes narrowed. ‘Didn’t he tell you?’

  ‘I—’ I bit down on the inside of my cheek, focused on the sensation of pressure and the taste of blood, stuffed all the grief and guilt and anger into a box in the centre of me until I could get the words out steadily. ‘I wasn’t home for most of last year.’

  Lorican waited, with the patient, bland expression of a man who knows a liar when he sees one. I had no idea what to say next. If I pressed him for details, he’d expect me to explain why Acarius and I hadn’t been speaking, and I couldn’t bring myself to do that. I was a fool and a coward, but I couldn’t expose myself that way in front of someone I’d only just met. I’d have to find some other way to get the information.

  Eventually, Lorican stirred himself. ‘Well. There’s stew in the kitchen. Don’t take too long with your girl. If we’re to go to the Deeptown temple, we’ve preparations to make, and I’ve got to see that the taproom is closed up properly.’

  ‘She’s not my girl,’ I said.

  ‘I see.’ He gave me a look that he had probably given hundreds of unconvincing people while he filled their cups. ‘Just be quick, brat.’ He disappeared into the taproom.