by Thomas Locke
Another from the crowd called, “What happened here?”
“I do not know. Yet.”
“We want answers!”
Hyam could sense the crowd’s fear. Tension seethed across the open plaza, dense as fog. He stepped up beside Connell. “Should I speak to them?”
“It might actually save the day,” Connell muttered.
Hyam raised his voice. “You know who I am. The crimson mage and Prince Ravi ruled this city with terror and dark forces. But no more! I am here, along with the Lady Joelle, the wizard Connell, and both the earl’s representative and the earl’s niece. We aim to keep you and the city safe.”
A woman’s voice shrilled, “What happened in there?”
“I have no idea. But if you will be patient, we will make a thorough investigation. Then I will come back out and together we will tell you everything we have found.”
“Everything?”
“You have my word.”
He stood and felt the tension dissolve into a muttering worry. He had no trouble with that. He was worried himself. Hyam turned to the others and said, “Let’s go.”
There was no front door to the Ashanta banker’s residence. In fact, there was nothing upon which a door might have been placed. The frame was gone. The surrounding stones were seared a greyish black, their surface turned molten-smooth. Beyond the absent portal, a layer of ash covered what remained of the floor. This cone-shaped destruction extended back from where they stood.
Hyam climbed the front stairs with Meda at his side. Joelle and Connell followed. The others remained out front, where the mob could see them and hopefully hold to patience.
From his position at the entryway, Hyam looked straight through what had been the manor’s rear wall. He said to his wife, “Ask Bryna if she detects the presence of a mage inside.”
A moment’s pause, then Joelle replied, “She senses nothing save the energy of what has already passed.”
“All right. Let’s go.”
Joelle unsheathed the Milantian blade as they moved forward. Their footsteps were muffled by the ash that covered every surface. The conical hole at the rear of the house was the same precise shape as in front, only ten times larger. A moon-shaped segment of the flooring was gone. Remnants of two windows dangled overhead. There was no movement. No life.
Hyam skirted the missing segment of the kitchen floor and crossed the rear garden, back to the city’s western wall. A clutch of guards stared down from the wall’s parapet. Hyam traced one hand over the ancient stones, which remained untouched by whatever had demolished the banker’s residence. He called up, “Did any of you see what happened here?”
A trooper leaned over the parapet and pointed to the nearest tower, five or six hundred paces to his right. “We were up top there, your lordship. The first sign any of us had was smoke rising from the ruins.”
“What of anyone leaving afterward?”
The guard slipped back out of sight as Connell stepped up beside him. Hyam asked, “What do you know of this wall?”
“Legends claim the Ancients sealed these stones with a force powerful enough to defy time,” Connell replied.
The guard returned and called down, “No one saw anything, your lordship.”
Hyam waved his thanks and turned back to the ruined manor. He asked Connell, “Was there family?”
“A wife and two young daughters.” Connell fell into step beside Hyam. “Lovely girls. I thought one showed the makings of a mage.”
A shout rose from inside the manor. They hurried along the track their footsteps had made in the ash and clambered up inside the house to discover Shona and Alembord standing beside Joelle.
Shona declared, “Someone is here.”
Even as Shona had stood by the demolished manor’s front gate, she continued to tremble slightly. Despite the moment’s exquisite nature, Shona could sense the crowd’s tension. They massed across the plaza from where she stood, an unmoving wall of flesh and fear. But just then her mind resonated with Fareed’s words welcoming her to the ranks of acolytes. She was a mage.
She walked a half-step from Alembord and faced the ruined villa. It was easiest to locate the shield in the fingers of her right hand. Soon as she closed her eyes, she felt the power. She drew it up and around her, creating the same shield as before. She opened her eyes and pretended to study the gaping ruin where the front door had previously stood. Her shield remained in place for a time, then drifted silently away. She drew the shield back into place. Again. Over and over, reveling in the coursing power. Amazing herself in the process.
Gradually the initial thrill died down to where she could study the internal effects. She felt the subtle power course across her, delicate as a breath of wind. With each new creation of the shield, her senses grew sharper. The impact did not last long, a few seconds only. But for those brief instances, she felt as though she could see around corners and through walls.
She was tempted to turn her attention to the people on the other side of the plaza. But their anxiety was already an unpleasant stain upon this amazing day, far more potent than the manor’s destruction. Whatever had caused this ruination was long gone. How she could possibly be so certain of this, she had no idea. But she stared at the manor’s stone façade as she drew the force around herself once more. In the tiny fraction of time that it was available to her, little longer than a single breath, she tried to push her awareness outward. Extend her senses in a definite direction.
She tasted the ash, and overlaid upon this was an acrid stench she had never known before, yet instantly knew it represented death.
Immediately she retreated back into herself and felt the shield gradually dissipate. She took a long breath and drew the power back up and around herself. And then redirected her senses, out in a different direction.
Shona drew back, so terrified she did not realize she had screamed until Alembord rushed over. “What’s the matter!”
But Shona was already racing for the manor’s front steps.
The manor’s lower level was mostly intact, save for one sliver of missing ceiling at the back, through which the sun now shone. The stairs emptied into a long antechamber with a vaulted ceiling that ran the entire length of the house. A number of doors opened off, most of them locked and barred.
Hyam asked, “Where did the sound come from?”
“It wasn’t a sound, exactly.” Shona pointed at a door with a high peaked top. “There.”
Connell tested the door and found it locked. He settled his forehead on a band of iron that fortified the stout oak, placed his hands upon the lock plate, took a deep breath, and pushed. The lock rattled and complained, but the door opened. He leaned on the stone frame and breathed hard. “I detest dealing with iron.”
Joelle stepped inside the dark chamber and with a gesture lit the chamber’s many candles. The illumination revealed the banker’s wealth. Silk carpets and brightly colored tapestries masked the windowless stone. Ledgers bound in leather and stamped in gold ran down two walls, held in glass-fronted shelves with gilded columns. The desk was oiled mahogany, held aloft by carved pillars covered in gold leaf. The chairs were covered in soft hide, the inkstand gold.
“There is no one here,” Connell said.
Shona pointed at the tapestry rising between two of the ledger cabinets. “Behind that.”
The tapestry showed an island rising from a sunlit sea, the waters a stunning mixture of russet and gold and blue. It hung on rings, suspended upon a long brass rod. Connell swept it aside, revealing only stone. Frowning, he ran his hand over the wall.
Joelle stepped up beside him. “Bryna senses very old magic at work, spells from the Ashanta’s earliest contact with mankind . . .”
Meda asked, “Can she detect anyone?”
Joelle held up her hand, silencing them all. She continued to draw her fingers slowly over the stones, as though her motions were guided by an unseen hand. Then Hyam heard her speak the Ashanta word “Open.”
The wall became framed in fire and slid soundlessly back.
A man’s voice called fearfully from within the hidden chamber, “Are you friends?”
15
An hour later, Hyam walked back across the square. Joelle and Meda accompanied him, while Connell remained behind to question the banker. The crowd held to such a still attentiveness he found it unnecessary to shout. “Who among you saw the attack?”
A woman cried back, “Is that what it was? The mage—”
“I will answer your questions. First answer mine. You heard there was an assault on the banker’s home. Did anyone actually see it?”
A man stepped forward, dressed in dusty clothes and a builder’s leather apron. “I heard it, your lordship. And saw a bit. I was putting a new roof on a house one street over. You can’t see it from where we’re standing, but I was high up.”
“Tell me what you saw.”
“There was a great crack, like the sky itself was split open. The earth shook enough to topple over my ladder, carrying my boy with it.”
“Is he safe?”
“Aye, your lordship.” He tugged on the sleeve of a young man taller than himself. “This is the great lout here. Shaken, but that’s it.”
“So you heard a blast. What did you see?”
“I was mostly watching after my boy. But I saw . . . Tell the truth, I can’t say for certain what I saw. The air seemed to shiver above the wall, like. And there was this great tumbling roar from the house. Then nothing.”
Hyam thanked him, then asked the group, “Did anyone else see what took place?”
A woman called, “I saw it.”
An older woman standing beside her protested, “Don’t speak up.”
“He asked and I’m saying.” The woman was young, slender, and dressed in the grey cotton frock of a maidservant. She pointed to a cluster of houses at the plaza’s north end. “I was ironing in the upstairs front room of the home back there, your lordship. It was just as the builder says. I heard a great blast, then the earth shook hard enough to crack the window where I was standing. Dust rose in a great billowing cloud, out the front door and the back both. Then it all went quiet as the tomb.”
“Aye, she’s right,” the builder said. “I forgot about the dust.”
Hyam asked, “Did you see anyone leave the manor?”
“Nary a soul, your lordship, and I was watching close.”
Hyam thanked her and raised his voice a notch. “Everything these good people have reported confirms what we have found inside. Some dread force has attacked the Ashanta banker and destroyed his home.”
The crowd gave off a single rustling breath, then a woman demanded, “It’s as I feared, the mage is back?”
“No. That I can say for certain. The crimson one who ruled this city has been destroyed. Whoever attacked here does not carry the same threat. This is a lesser force, but dangerous just the same.”
Another voice called, “What of the banker?”
“He is safe. As are all his family and servants. No one perished in the attack.”
A man called, “And our money?”
“That too was untouched by the attack.” Hyam gave the crowd time to chatter, then continued, “Here is what we know. A new force lurks in this city’s shadows. And we need your help to identify who or what it is. The enemy is not so strong as to operate in the open. Keep a careful eye for the unnatural, the stranger, the one whose presence is threatening. Do not provoke it! Come to us. We will do what is necessary, and defeat it.”
The querulous woman demanded, “You’ll keep us safe?”
“Come to us,” Hyam repeated. “We have been sent by Bayard, your rightful earl, to identify this threat, destroy it, and ensure your safety. Remember, Emporis is your city! Help us keep this threat at bay!”
The communications mirror served as a window most clearly at its center. Around the borders its surface became tinted by the pewter backing, and the images wavered somewhat. Bayard had brought his entire council this time. They all shared the same grim countenance as Hyam made his report.
When he was finished, Bayard pondered for a time, then said, “Tell me of this desert trader.”
“His name is Jaffar, and thus far no one has seen him, including the banker.” Hyam gestured to Connell, who was seated to his right, with Joelle to his left. “Your master mage questioned the banker while I dealt with the crowd. I would ask that he relate this portion himself.”
Bayard demanded, “Crowd?”
“Drawn by the blast,” Hyam explained.
Connell said, “Several times the banker sent for Jaffar, but the merchant was always represented by his chief drover, Selim. A roughish man by all accounts. Selim claimed that Jaffar is secretive by nature, and this was what has kept him alive so long. He also claimed that his bird had instructed Jaffar to not set foot within the city walls. For if he did, he would perish.”
“A desert trader claims to receive instructions from a bird?”
“A great eagle with desert plumage,” Hyam said. “A magnificent bird with wings broader than my arm span. Let Connell finish and I will explain.”
Trace asked, “What else did the bird say?”
Bayard examined his chief wizard. “You believe the trader speaks with a bird?”
“The banker and his entire family survived,” Trace replied. “I have no choice but to accept the man’s report as true.”
Connell went on, “The night before the attack, Selim slipped past the Ashanta banker’s guards and entered their dining hall. He claimed to have done so to demonstrate how the real enemy would be arriving. Perhaps within the hour, certainly within a day. If the banker wanted to survive, they would hide where none could find them, for already the enemy was watching the house’s only exit. He gave the banker a sack, one his master had been instructed to deliver to the hero of Emporis.”
“More instructions from this bird, I suppose?”
“Precisely, sire. Then the banker said Selim left through the kitchen door, crossed the rear garden, and scaled the city wall like a spider.” The mirror’s illumination tinted Connell’s features with a severe metallic gleam. “The banker and all his household spent a frightened night crammed inside the secret treasure chamber. Sometime around dawn, the earth shook so violently they were all bounced around like pebbles in a stone box. One strap holding gold bars to a shelf broke and knocked a guard out cold. The chamber was filled with the most horrid odor of ash and cinders, and they assumed the entire house had been set alight. But there was neither heat nor smoke.”
Bayard pondered this, then asked Hyam, “What did the sack contain?”
“A scroll, a note from Jaffar to me, and the merchant’s own private seal,” Hyam replied. “The note stated that Jaffar was ready to take me wherever I needed to go, whenever I was ready to depart. The seal was offered as a guarantee. The scroll contains another Milantian spell.”
“Which none save Hyam can read,” Connell added. “To my eye it is utterly blank.”
“The spell is there, and it is complete,” Hyam assured them. “Jaffar wrote that the bird claims this scroll is vital to our enemy. Jaffar apparently did not even know he carried the scroll until the bird told him. He broke open one of the amphorae to find it. The bird told Jaffar to keep the scroll safe until we arrived. It is a binding spell, that much I can tell you, and centers upon transforming some kind of gemstone. To what purpose, I have no idea. The scroll merely says, ‘Use a shard of heartstone, and draw together all that remains.’”
Bayard frowned at Trace. “Does that make any sense to you?”
“I am still grappling with the idea that a merchant has offered his services to a man he has never met,” Trace replied. “On instruction from a bird.”
Bayard turned back to Hyam. “What do you propose to do?”
“What we must,” Hyam said. “Try to determine what secrets the new scroll holds that grants it such importance to the enemy. Then draw our foe away from the realm of men, out
into the yellow desert.”
“Risky,” Trace muttered. “Perilous in the extreme.”
“And yet the correct move,” Bayard agreed.
Hyam asked, “Do either of you know what might be meant by the term heartstone?”
“None whatsoever,” Trace replied.
“Perhaps Timmins can help,” Bayard said, rising from the table. “But first he wishes to have a word with his daughter.”
16
That afternoon Shona crossed the castle’s silent courtyard beside Joelle, who had suggested they visit the central market together. Meda had volunteered to serve as guard and companion and remained two steps behind them as Shona asked, “Why are we doing this now?”
Joelle replied, “I want to buy you a birthday present.”
“Connell told you?”
“As he should have,” Joelle replied. “What sort of gift would you like?”
“I have no idea.”
“It needs to be something that marks your entry into adulthood. A gown, perhaps.”
“Please, no. My mother is always after me to dress like a lady.”
“Then let’s pretend I did not even suggest it.”
They passed through ancient stone arches and entered the crush of the city’s main bazaar. Every manner of beast and race was on display, both for sale and crowding the cobblestone lanes. The first line of shops held birds in cages and on leashes. They screamed and shrilled and sang a welcome that buffeted Shona. The three women walked slowly, taking it all in, winding their way deeper and deeper into the market’s heart. The lanes were roofed in long streamers of translucent gauze, violet and pink and ivory. Sunlight bathed the covering, and they walked through a shaded rainbow.
They stopped for lunch at an elegant teahouse whose interior was formed from polished blond wood. Without being asked, Meda settled into the table next to theirs. The waiter was an old man with merry eyes who pretended to swoon with delight over serving two lovely ladies, then urged them to try the house specialty of roast lamb with mint and desert sorrel.
