Lord of Secrets

by Breanna Teintze

  ‘Very well.’ Jaern spoke the words unwillingly, looking almost as disturbed as I felt. ‘Then I suggest you get me out of this stinking alley.’

  Something was making him obedient in spite of himself. Something . . .

  I swallowed. I didn’t want to follow that line of thought to its conclusion, just then. ‘Lorican.’

  Lorican unlocked the door, and Jaern stalked in. As I walked past the Erranter, he stopped me with a hand on my chest.

  ‘What was that?’ Lorican stared towards the dark interior of the tavern. ‘How did you convince him?’

  ‘I have no idea.’ I pushed past Lorican. It wasn’t much of a lie. What did I know about souls? I was no priest and I didn’t have any real answers. All I had was a theory and another problem.

  In contrast to the alley, the tavern’s kitchen smelled almost pleasant, with the ghosts of old meals hanging around the cold hearth. Jaern had halted beside the fireplace. Lorican and Brix followed me into the room and Lorican shut the door, depriving us of even the thin starlight from the alley, and he began feeling around on the mantel.

  A tight knot of muscles I hadn’t been aware of loosened at the base of my spine. The dark, the quiet and even the odour of past cooking were comforting. Normal. Finally, I’d have the time to think, maybe even to divine for Acarius and see if I could finally pinpoint a location.

  ‘Damn,’ Lorican said. ‘The candle’s in the taproom. I’ll get it.’

  The swinging door between the kitchen and the taproom squeaked as it opened and closed. Another scent tickled my nostrils. Acrid, chemical. It couldn’t have come from the alley or the cooking pot.

  No.

  I swung my arm, blindly, and knocked against Brix. ‘Everyone, get outside. Run, and don’t look back.’

  The door to the taproom banged open, green light blazing through it. The spell hit me before I could shout, a burst of pain exploding through my bones, dropping me to my knees and wrenching every muscle into a cramp.

  ‘Too late,’ Jaern said.

  Fifteen

  My knees ached where the stone floor bit into them. I couldn’t see anything except green light and the blurred outline of whoever stood in the doorway.

  ‘Corcoran Gray, you’re under arrest. Don’t be foolish, and we won’t paralyse you.’

  I didn’t recognise the voice. It wasn’t Lorican, and it wasn’t Jaern. At least this probably meant that Jaern wasn’t the one who threw the spell at me, although the choice of spell seemed awfully coincidental. This was some horrible variation on a tetany spell. The muscles in my back wrenched tighter.

  Concentrating, I got my eyes to focus. A man and a woman stood just inside the doorway, wearing the elaborately embroidered robes of senior wizards. I couldn’t see Lorican, but there were a limited number of possibilities. He was dead in the taproom, disabled in the taproom or in league with these Guild thugs.

  My jaw would hardly open. ‘Just how in the hells do you think I can be foolish in this condition?’

  The wizard who had spoken, a man with a curling blond beard, smiled thinly. ‘You have a spell scribed on your wrist. Who knows what you might have written under your clothes. I’m going to pull the spell back a bit in order that you and your companions may strip to the skin. Once we’ve seen that none of you have anything threatening scribed, you may dress, and then we will take you to the Guildhouse for trial. If you do anything that even smells like the beginning of an incantation, I will release the spell again. The tetany spell can break men’s bones, you understand. I’d do it now, but it would be inconvenient to have to carry you.’

  ‘Bastards,’ Brix whispered. ‘You’re not supposed to hurt people like this.’

  My bones had been broken before, as far as that went, but the thought of them breaking hers made my skin crawl. I couldn’t master my neck muscles enough to turn towards her. ‘Don’t,’ I said. ‘There’s more than one of them; they can throw another copy of the same spell if they want.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said the wizard. ‘I suggest you get started.’

  The spell around me relaxed, just a little. I got up to my feet, unlacing my shirt as I went. The spell still pulsed, putrid green, throbbing under my skin, ready to snap back into action at any moment. It was like moving underwater. ‘There’s no point in you keeping the others; the tribunal won’t find anything to charge them with. The woman’s useless – doesn’t know a damn thing. I paid her for Temples information, and even that wasn’t very helpful. And the Erranter just rents rooms.’

  Brix’s breath hissed behind me, but it was all I could think of. There was no other scenario in which the Guildies would let her go. I certainly couldn’t let them find out she was Tirnaal. Ri Dana had a small but thriving slave market; Brix would bring a handsome price on the block – and that was assuming they didn’t just drag her back and lock her up in the Guildhouse here.

  ‘And that one?’ The blond wizard pointed at Jaern. ‘What excuse do you have for him? Disrobe, or we’ll paralyse you all and strip you ourselves.’

  Jaern had already slipped out of his antique tunic. He pulled off his shirt and dropped it into a puddle of fabric on the floor, yawning. This was the man who had enchanted an Erranter without blinking, dammit. What was the point in having a necromancer if he wouldn’t cast when I needed help?

  I yanked my own shirt off, hoping that Brix would be slow with the buttons on her robe. There had to be a way out of this. There was always a way out. I pulled my feet out of my boots, one at a time. Think. Think.

  ‘What in the hells did Keir tell you that I’ve done?’ I stopped with my hands on my belt clasp, skin prickling with cold. ‘Doesn’t Guild law say you have to tell me the charge?’ Even worse than the possibility of dying or having my mind broken, I discovered, was being faced with the idea that Brix would see me without my clothes.

  ‘The Examiner General was very specific about you,’ the blond wizard said. ‘The charge is unlicensed sorcery and sedition. Someone has been spreading nonstandard practice among the Guildhouses for the last year, recruiting apprentices, whispering about uniting with Temples to overthrow the Royal Charter. We think that’s you. Especially considering you travel with this woman, who matches a description Temples has been circulating as a runaway. Now stop stalling. Drop your trousers and turn around. And keep your hands where I can see them.’

  I obeyed, unable not to look at Brix as I turned. She was only halfway done with the buttons. Her gaze found my leg as though looking for my absent brace, and she frowned for a second before meeting my eyes.

  ‘They’ve got no reason to hurt me,’ she said. ‘It’s all right.’

  But it wasn’t, and she knew it. Jaern, I assumed, could handle himself, but if I couldn’t figure something out, Brix would wind up on an auction block and Lorican in the stocks or worse, and it would be my fault.

  The incantation on my hands would do to knock one of them unconscious, if I could get their attention off me long enough to speak. But that would leave one of them still kicking, and they’d paralyse me in seconds. I needed another spell, and there was no way I could get one scribed.

  ‘Those scars.’ At least the blond wizard didn’t sound bored anymore.

  I turned back to him, relieved to get away from Brix’s eyes. ‘Which scars?’ It wasn’t an idle question; I have several sets. Usually I hate them. They’re reminders of bad times, failed spells, midnight runs out of stinking villages and dead-souled towns. Right then, however, they were buying me another scrap of time.

  ‘The round ones on your shoulder blades. What—’

  ‘Flight,’ I interrupted. ‘They’re from where wings attach to the skeleton, and yes, it hurts.’

  ‘That’s impossible.’ The wizard’s smile had faded. ‘No one can fly.’

  ‘Unlicensed sorcery has its advantages,’ I said. ‘Now that you’ve seen I don’t have anything else scribed, can I please put my clothes back on?’

  ‘It’s impossible,’ repeated the wizard.


  I met the Guildie’s eyes. ‘If it was, why would the Guild have a law against it? It’s not impossible, it’s just expensive, dangerous and difficult.’

  ‘You’re lying.’ Finally a word from the second wizard, a woman with a braid of salt-and-pepper brown hair twisted across the top of her head like a coronet.

  ‘What would be the point of that?’ I said. ‘Impressing you now only gets me more torture later.’ You wouldn’t think it was possible to be exasperated and terrified at the same time, but I was. If I was going to get caught and mindblown, why did it have to be by these walking sacks of stupid?

  Jaern was watching the exchange with some interest, completely naked except for the black amulet hanging around his neck, muscular arms crossed over his chiselled chest. The low-burning irritation in my gut blazed into outright anger. If the lazy bastard had nothing scribed on him – and I could tell there was nothing – how had he cast before? Was it on his clothes, somehow? Was it the amulet?

  ‘Enough,’ the blond wizard said. ‘We’ll get the truth about the scars when we get the rest of the information out of your mind. For now, the girl strips.’

  If Brix stripped, they’d see her ink. I had to figure out how to hurt him. ‘I told you,’ I said, ‘she doesn’t know anything. There’s nothing scribed on her. I’m not stupid enough to put incantations where I can’t keep track of them.’

  ‘Don’t make me ask again.’ The blond wizard pushed his sleeves up, revealing the runes scribed from his wrists to his elbows. One forearm was covered with the spell he was running now. On the other, though, was a sheet fire incantation, and it had not been activated. My eyes narrowed.

  A risky idea, maybe. Still, if Jaern could cast using sigils written gods knew where, why couldn’t I use the ones written on someone else’s forearm?

  I had to distract him, or I would never have the time to get the incantation finished. ‘Brix,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s not your fault.’ She stepped forwards. As her fingers flashed down the line of buttons on the front of the robe, the blond wizard’s eyes fixed on her. She reached for the belt, the last thing holding her robe shut. I let the syllables roll past my lips.

  The runes flared to life on the wizard’s arm and he screamed, but it was too late. I was running the spell, not him. A wall of flame burned between us. I pushed it towards the wizards as fast as I could. Soon even a Guild idiot would realise that he could rub out the spell on his own arm and stop me, and by then I had to be close enough to touch them. I couldn’t keep the spell running very long, or the tavern would catch on fire.

  I shouted over my shoulder: ‘Brix, Jaern, go. Find Lorican and run!’

  She didn’t move. ‘What about you?’

  Jaern uncrossed his arms, extended a hand and pronounced something. It took a moment for my mind to register what it was – paralysis, a very aggressive variation.

  A patch of light blazed on the skin over the left side of his ribs. I squinted and tried to watch as best I could while keeping hold of my spell. It looked like runes scribed on the skin had come to life, but there had been nothing there. I knew there had been nothing there.

  Jaern moved towards the paralysed wizards and rubbed out the spells on both of the blond man’s arms. The flames went out and I stood there, shivering and furious.

  ‘Hells!’ I grabbed my trousers and jerked them on. ‘How did you do that?’

  ‘More to the point, I think, is deciding what we’re going to do with these.’ Jaern gestured towards the Guildies. ‘What are they, apart from annoying?’

  ‘No, you’re going to tell me how you cast without having a spell scribed.’ Again I felt that odd pull inside me, the weird buzz that blotted out other thought. Again Jaern’s black eyes flashed with discomfort, just for a split second. ‘And why you waited so long to help,’ I added.

  ‘It’s a handmade body.’ He spoke reluctantly, as though he had a sword in his back. ‘When I built it, I took the skin off, scribed the most common spells on the inside and then put the skin back. My body has all kinds of useful modifications. And I waited because I wanted to see how clever you were, and how you’d deal with the situation on your own. Now, given that these two fools are standing here listening to every word we say, who are they?’

  ‘Guild wizards,’ I said.

  ‘Keir Esras’ pets?’ Jaern smoothed the collar on the blond wizard’s robe.

  ‘Not quite,’ I said. ‘I don’t think they know why he told them to hunt me. Keir was working with Temples in Fenwydd, which probably means he’s the one spreading sedition inside the Guild. We’ll have to question them, to—’

  Jaern put his hand on the blond wizard’s chest and spoke. The spell lit on the back of the god’s neck before I could react, scarlet light pulsing with malevolence. The blond wizard’s eyes fixed on him, panicked as a bird in a snare. Light streamed from the wizard’s nostrils into the black pendant swinging around Jaern’s neck. In a split second, the other wizard was glowing, too.

  Blood burst from the paralysed wizards’ mouths, and they slumped to the ground in two pathetic heaps.

  ‘Stop!’ I sprang towards Jaern and grabbed his arm.

  He looked at me with mild surprise.

  I released him, unable to look away from the people on the floor. Their skin had already taken on a sickly, yellowish cast as the circulation ceased. There was nothing left to do. ‘You killed them,’ I said.

  ‘Put your head between your knees before you spew.’ Jaern squatted beside the blond wizard and methodically began going through his clothes. ‘Or go and find your other little friend in the taproom. Make sure he’s breathing, if you want to keep him.’

  I fought to steady my body. The caustic odour of magic mingled with smoke and blood in my nostrils, and did indeed make me want to retch. ‘You . . .’

  Jaern pulled the robe off the wizard and held it up to himself. ‘Too short, but the other one is shorter.’

  ‘You killed them,’ I repeated. But I wasn’t really talking to Jaern. This was my fault. The Guildies had been stupid, and dangerous, but they hadn’t deserved to die. And I had been the one to bring the necromancer here; these deaths were mine.

  ‘So quaint. They were going to kill you. What would you have done instead, since you don’t have the stomach for killing?’ Jaern shook the wrinkles out of the robe. ‘Can you even gut a fish?’

  Brix’s hand was on my forearm. ‘Come on, Gray. Let’s check on Lorican and then get away from here.’ She glared towards Jaern. ‘He doesn’t have to come with us.’

  ‘She’s wounding my sensibilities,’ Jaern remarked. He was pulling off the dead wizard’s shirt now. ‘Are you going to tell her?’

  Brix’s eyebrows rose. ‘Tell me what?’

  I grabbed my satchel and stepped over the wizards’ bodies and into the taproom. The odour of new death followed me, the ugly stink of bodies without spirits in them. It smelled like plague-time, like hiding in the dark and watching the survivors make pyres. It smelled like being a child again.

  Where in the name of Farran was Lorican? I fished out a grease pencil, scribbled an illumination spell on my forearm and sent the ball of light to hover in the rafters. Maybe at least I could keep him from dying, if he wasn’t dead already. Maybe he could give me some answers.

  ‘Tell me what?’ Brix had followed. ‘Does this have something to do with where your knee brace went?’

  Lorican was on the floor. From what I could gather from a cursory examination, he was unconscious, but breathing.

  ‘Gray,’ she said.

  At least she wasn’t calling me Corcoran. I sat on my heels beside Lorican, reduced to honesty. ‘I don’t know how to explain,’ I said.

  ‘You can talk while you work.’ She bent down and put a couple of fingers on Lorican’s neck. ‘He’s alive. Is he enchanted or something?’

  ‘Evidently.’ Lorican didn’t appear to be enchanted with anything dangerous. It was probably a simple repose spell, like I’d used on th
e priest back in Fenwydd jail, all those miles ago.

  ‘So fix him,’ Brix said.

  ‘He’ll likely wake up in a couple of hours no matter what I do.’ I took a breath. There was no sense in avoiding it any longer. Jaern would tell Brix if I didn’t. ‘But I can’t . . .’ Figure it out, Cricket. ‘. . . leave him,’ I finished, even more awkwardly than I finish most things.

  ‘Lorican?’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you sure he’ll even want to come with you?’

  ‘I mean the bone prince in the other room picking out his new wardrobe,’ I said. ‘He has to come with me. Hells, there’s probably a spatial component to it. I doubt he can go very far out of my sight.’

  She frowned. ‘Spatial component to what? A spell?’

  ‘It’s not quite a spell.’ The back of my neck was still cramping. I rubbed at it. ‘Jaern did . . . something, underground, that healed my lame knee. And I may have swallowed his soul.’

  Brix raised a finger. Any patience in her voice evaporated. ‘You may have swallowed his soul ?’

  ‘He said it was his soul.’ The cramp in my neck didn’t ease. ‘It could have been anything, I suppose. At least it got him to do what I told him.’

  ‘You’re saying you have two souls,’ she said.

  ‘More or less. Keep it to yourself.’ I bent back over Lorican. ‘Maybe I should just break the ley and wake the damn bartender up. It might make things simpler.’

  She gazed at me with a kind of sickened fascination, the way some people will look at a body on a gibbet at a crossroads. ‘Can you feel it?’

  ‘Farran’s wig!’ I leaned closer to her and forced my speech down to a whisper; I was betting Jaern had modified hearing, too, and I didn’t want him listening in. ‘No, I can’t feel it. No, I don’t have the soul in the sense I have my own – I can’t think with it or anything. I hope I’m just a . . . container, but I don’t know that much about necromancy so I’m not sure about anything, including how to get rid of it. And I’m not any happier about the situation than you are, but if I’m going to free my grandfather, I need him.’ I ran a hand down my face. ‘Look, I don’t think we’ve got that much time. Those two were radically unlucky, but they were still senior wizards. When they don’t show up in the morning, their Guildfellows will divine for their sigils.’