Armed & Magical rb-2

by Lisa Shearin

  I didn’t need to ask who “it” was. There was no pressure in the center of my chest from the Saghred. I still hesitated before answering. “Yes.”

  “You don’t sound sure.”

  “I’m sure it’s asleep. I just don’t trust it.”

  Cayle spoke. “If it is asleep, the king’s ransom question is how long will it stay that way.”

  “A century or two would be nice,” I muttered.

  Piaras looked from one of us to the other, now scared and confused.

  “Should we tell Piaras what he just did?” I asked Mychael.

  “He needs to know.”

  Out in the corridor, Guardians were getting to their feet in response to their paladin’s voice; some of them had thrown an arm over a brother’s shoulder for support. It was starting to look less like nap time and more like the morning after a night out.

  “You mean that?” Piaras asked. He sounded a little sick.

  “I’m afraid you did more than that,” I told him.

  “I did more?”

  “Mychael and Maestro Cayle were spellsinging the Saghred to sleep, but you beat them to it.”

  “Maestro?” Piaras whispered in sheer terror.

  Somehow I didn’t think Piaras had heard anything past “Maestro.”

  Mychael spoke. “Ronan, this is your audition for tomorrow.”

  Cayle’s amber eyes were locked on Piaras. “So you’re Master Rivalin. Audition, hell. There’ll be no audition.”

  Phaelan came to his feet. I was about to punch Ronan Cayle.

  Piaras stood perfectly still, his breathing shallow. “I no longer have an audition.” He didn’t ask it as a question, and he clenched his jaw against any further show of emotion. He was devastated, but he was going to keep his dignity. “I understand, sir.”

  Phaelan stepped up beside me, and I laid a restraining hand on his arm. If he was going after Cayle, he’d have to get in line behind me.

  “No, you don’t understand,” Cayle told him. “You don’t knock out half the Guardians in the citadel and then audition.” He walked slowly around Piaras, assessing what he saw and what he could not see.

  The Piaras I saw was tall, had liquid brown eyes and tousled dark curls, and was on the verge of becoming a handsome young man. Piaras saw awkwardness and a voice that would always be less than perfect. I think Ronan Cayle was seeing a powerful, loose cannon who’d taken out most of Mid’s main line of defense.

  “Yes, you’re very dangerous,” the maestro said softly.

  His voice was velvet-covered steel. “With the right song, you’d be lethal. You’re unpredictable, impulsive, and you have absolutely no idea of your potential.”

  Piaras swallowed. “Potential, sir?”

  “Potential.” Cayle stopped in front of Piaras and smiled slowly. “For the good of the seven kingdoms, I’d better take you as a student.” His smile broadened and those amber eyes glittered. “As to auditioning, you just did.”

  Piaras gaped in disbelief. “You’re accepting me?”

  “I am.” Cayle chuckled softly. “You’ve left me no choice.”

  “And without a formal audition,” Mychael told Piaras, his lips curling into a small smile. “That’s a first, isn’t it, Ronan?”

  “It is. Be at my tower at exactly eight bells tomorrow morning,” Cayle told Piaras. “Mychael can tell you where it is.” The smile vanished. “And come prepared to work.”

  Piaras smiled like the sun had just come out. “Thank you, sir.”

  Ronan Cayle laughed, a short bark. “We’ll see how thankful you are after tomorrow. And by the way, my students are expected to sprint to the top of my tower in three minutes or less. Builds lung capacity.” There was an evil glint in those amber eyes. “You’re going to need it.”

  “A cut shield explains Piaras spellsinging my men to sleep,” Mychael said. “But it doesn’t tell me who did the cutting, or why. It also doesn’t tell me how Piaras sang the Saghred to sleep. That was a battlefield sleepsong; it shouldn’t have worked.”

  Piaras blinked. “I did what?”

  “Your voice put the rock to sleep,” I told him. “That was that other thing you did.”

  “How could…? I never meant to… I was up here; the Saghred is down there.” Realization dawned on him. “There are air ducts in the containment rooms.”

  Mychael nodded. “We could hear you loud and clear.”

  “Sir, I’m sorry,” Piaras hurried to explain. “I never meant to—”

  Mychael held up a hand. “I know you didn’t, and I’m not blaming you. This room stays shielded to prevent exactly what just happened. The sabotage was not your fault. And regardless of how you did it, you did put the Saghred to sleep, and for that you have my thanks.”

  “It was almost like the Saghred wanted to go to sleep once it heard you,” I told Piaras. “It liked what it heard.” I paused uneasily. “A lot.”

  “It liked Piaras’s song?” Phaelan asked.

  “The Saghred and those inside the Saghred liked Piaras’s song,” I clarified. “And I’m not sure if either is a good thing.”

  Piaras didn’t move. “What do you mean?”

  “I got the feeling the Saghred’s inmates enjoyed your song a little bit too much—and so did the rock.”

  “Is the rock asleep?” Phaelan asked.

  “Yes.”

  “If it’s asleep, it doesn’t really matter what its taste in music is.”

  Logic was all well and good, but Phaelan wasn’t the one with a growing, evil fan base.

  Piaras was clearly creeped. “I don’t want the Saghred’s inmates to like me.” He lowered his voice. “Especially you know who.”

  “I don’t want him to like you, either.” Neither one of us felt the need to say the name out loud. Sarad Nukpana was asleep. Probably. Saying his name right now didn’t seem like a good idea, kind of like summoning an evil genie out of a bottle.

  Last week, Sarad Nukpana had given me a choice: either I gave him a demonstration of the Saghred’s power, or he would sacrifice Piaras to the Saghred. Piaras was alive. Nukpana was inside the Saghred. Now Nukpana let Piaras sing him to sleep. I needed to know why, and I needed to know now. If the Saghred had gone to sleep of its own volition, it’d probably wake up the same way.

  I pulled Mychael aside. “So, is there a user’s manual for the Saghred?” My words were for his ears alone. Thanks to our saboteur, I didn’t know who could be listening.

  He looked honestly baffled. “A what?”

  “User’s manual, directions, instructions, why the damned thing fought two master spellsingers, but rolled over and went to sleep when Piaras sang to it.”

  “The Scriptorium has several books on the Saghred.”

  “Good. I want to read them.”

  “They’re in Old Goblin.”

  “Not a problem. I read Old Goblin.”

  Mychael seemed reluctant. I knew why.

  I waited a few seconds until my voice wouldn’t sound as exasperated as I felt. “Yes, the Saghred’s been in my head,” I said through only partially clenched teeth. “And I am well aware that you can’t entirely trust me as long as there’s a chance it will come back. But do you really think it’s going to help our cause to keep me locked away and stupid? If any of those books can tell me how to unhook myself from that rock, I want to know about it. And I’m not the only one in danger here.” I glanced at Piaras; he was talking earnestly with Ronan Cayle. I lowered my voice even further. “I want to know everything that Sarad Nukpana knows, and then some.”

  Mychael hesitated, but not for long. “I’ll make the arrangements.”

  “Sir?” came a familiar voice from the doorway.

  It was Riston. I couldn’t help but notice that he had a bad case of bedhead, and he still looked a little dazed. Piaras winced apologetically. Phaelan’s laugh came out as a snort.

  “Sir, the chief watcher is here to see you.” Riston looked puzzled. “And he said he brought you a hairbrush.”

/>   Chapter 6

  The man in Mychael’s office was wearing enough leather armor and blades to make him feel secure in the nastiest sections of town. I’d once found out the hard way that when a man was that big and that heavily armed and wearing an expression that grim, it was good to wait and be properly introduced.

  Mychael greeted him with a warm handshake. I couldn’t help but notice that Mychael’s entire hand vanished in the man’s enormous paw.

  “Raine, this is our chief watcher, Sedge Rinker. Sedge, this is Raine Benares.”

  I crossed the office and cautiously extended my hand. Members of my family were generally greeted with hand-cuffsby law enforcement, not handshakes. Rinker hesitated a moment, then took my hand in a firm yet surprisingly gentle handshake.

  “I was in the square this morning and saw what you did.” Rinker’s voice was a basso rumble. “Impressive work—and I don’t mind saying a little scary.”

  I grinned. I couldn’t imagine anything scaring this man. “I scared me, too,” I told him.

  Sedge Rinker didn’t look like a man who sat behind a desk all day. His dark beard was trimmed neatly enough, but he hadn’t fussed with it. His hair was efficiently short, but style wasn’t something he bothered with or cared about. However, his armor and weapons were of the highest quality and in immaculate condition. I’d seen his like among watch officers many times—they were utterly devoted to their work and the people they protected.

  “Did you get anything useful from those two Nightshades?” he asked Mychael.

  I gave Mychael a sharp look. “You took two alive?”

  “We did.”

  “And?”

  “And our investigation is ongoing.”

  It was his paladin voice, the voice that wasn’t about to tell me anything. His expression wasn’t volunteering information, either.

  Rinker looked uneasily from Mychael to me. He’d assumed Mychael trusted me. So had I.

  “Janek Tawl is a friend of mine,” Rinker told me, deftly changing the subject. “He says you’re the best seeker he knows. I was glad to find out you were visiting us.”

  Janek Tawl was a friend of mine, too. As chief watcher of the Sorcerers District back home in Mermeia, Janek’s path had crossed mine on a regular basis. Janek occasionally sought my expertise as a seeker, and from time to time he was able to give me leads on cases I was working on.

  “Janek’s a top-notch watcher and a fine man,” I agreed. “I’m honored that he thinks so highly of me.” I tossed Mychael a meaningful glance.

  “Mychael tells me you want to help us find one of our missing students.”

  Small talk was over. I liked a man who got right down to business. “I want to do everything I can to help,” I told him.

  Rinker pulled a cloth-wrapped object out of a leather bag. He carefully handed it to me without unwrapping it. Good man. He knew his business, and more important, he knew mine. More than once I’d been called to a crime scene only to find that the object I most needed to use had been handled by nearly every watcher on-site, contaminating it and rendering it useless for seeking. It was their emotional imprint I’d get, not the victim’s. So the only person I’d find was the stupid watcher who’d last picked it up.

  I took the wrapped hairbrush. “Did anyone touch this before it was wrapped?” I asked him.

  “No one,” he assured me.

  I smiled at him. “Thank you, Chief Watcher. It’s always a pleasure to work with true professionals.”

  He nodded. “I understand you were there when Miss Jacobs was taken through that mirror.”

  “Megan Jacobs is the student’s name,” Mychael clarified.

  “Yes, I was,” I told the watcher. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t in a position to do anything to prevent it.” I frowned. “I can’t make up for what happened, but I want to help you find her—and the man who took her.”

  “You’re familiar with Banan Ryce?” Rinker asked.

  “We’ve met,” I said flatly. “It wasn’t professional, but it was hardly social.”

  The watcher didn’t ask me to explain, which was good, because I had no intention of doing so.

  I turned to Mychael. “May I use your couch? Hopefully I won’t need it, but better comfy than concussed.”

  “Of course.”

  I went to the couch, sat down with my back against the cushions. Even before my Saghred-enhanced seeking skills, I made it a point to try to sit someplace soft when working. The impressions I got from an object could be vague or jarring, and since I was attempting a direct link with a hopefully still-living person, the disorientation from that link could very well put me on the floor.

  I held the wrapped hairbrush in one hand and peeled back the fabric with the other. It was a small silver brush of fine quality. Even better, there were a few long, blond hairs caught in the bristles. Last week, I got to experience a murder victim’s last seconds right along with him—all courtesy of the power boost the Saghred had given me. The victim had been killed the day before, so I’d gotten nothing from his personal object but last impressions and a mild case of the whirlies.

  Megan Jacobs was still alive, as far as we knew. I’d never been inside a living person’s head before. I was pretty sure I could do it; I just didn’t know what to expect. Being the control freak that I am, I always want to know what to expect. Too bad I rarely get what I want.

  I picked up the brush and clasped it in both hands.

  The connection was immediate, crystal clear, and unnerving as hell.

  I was disoriented, but what I felt was sick. I took shallow breaths and blew them out in short puffs, willing the contents of my stomach to stay right where they were. My stomach listened, and I saw the world through Megan Jacobs’s eyes.

  The girl was alive, conscious, and scared to death. The scared part seemed like an appropriate enough response to being dragged through a mirror by Banan Ryce. As best I could tell, Banan hadn’t been keeping her company. That was good. What wasn’t so good was that she wasn’t in any place I could easily identify.

  It was cold, damp, and almost completely dark. A single small candle in an iron holder was on the floor with her. The floor and walls felt like stone to me, probably subterranean, judging from the temperature, though whether it was natural or a man-made structure such as a cellar I had no way of knowing—and neither did Megan. She wasn’t tied up and could have gone exploring. I know I would have. She just huddled in a corner, shaking. The shaking I could deal with, but if she didn’t stop breathing like she was trying to outrun a demon from the lower hells, she was going to pass out and take me right along with her. She certainly had the right idea about Banan Ryce, but he wasn’t in the room with her now.

  But that didn’t mean she was alone.

  There was another girl with her. The meager light showed a slender figure, curled on her side. She was turned away from me, so I couldn’t see her face, but I could see her hair. She was a blonde. The slight rise and fall of her back told me she was breathing, so she was either asleep or unconscious.

  Megan’s panicked breathing was making me light-headed. Though it might have been less from Megan, and more from what I was about to try. In the good old days of last week, when I was just a simple seeker for hire, I could use an object from a missing person to get an idea of the direction they’d been taken. A vague idea. That’s what I could do in my pre-Saghred professional life. Megan had been taken through a mirror. Mirrors didn’t leave a trail to follow; but since I had successfully linked with Megan, I should be able to pinpoint for Sedge Rinker exactly where those girls were—and better yet, where he could get his hands on Banan Ryce, if the smug bastard was nearby.

  Maybe.

  Knowing the mechanics of how something was done and actually doing it yourself were two entirely different things. Sometimes those things turned out to be merely unpleasant—sometimes they were lethal.

  Ah, the joys of my chosen career.

  I loosened my grip ever so slightly on the hair
brush, likewise loosening my direct link with Megan Jacobs. I maintained contact with the girl, although I was no longer inside her head. The impression of the girl remained, strong and clear. It was like keeping someone in your line of sight, but no longer touching them. I kept my eyes closed and my breathing even. I was now back in the citadel, no longer where Megan was being held.

  Step one successfully completed.

  I felt myself start to smile and stopped it. Don’t get cocky, Raine.

  I almost didn’t dare to breathe. As a seeker, I knew what to do now; I just didn’t know how far I could go. Logic and the strength of my contact with Megan Jacobs told me I should be able to go from the citadel directly to where Megan was being held.

  Sometimes logic didn’t work. And sometimes it bit you in the ass.

  I gripped the brush again, but resisted a direct link, instead focusing on direction. I’d just been with Megan; now I needed to know where she was.

  The impression of the girl was like a scent. I followed it.

  I felt myself leave the citadel and go out into the square where the stage had collapsed this morning. Men were working by torchlight to clear the last of the debris. I followed Megan’s scent into the twisting, cobbled mazes of Mid’s streets, through the college campus, and into the center city.

  And lost her.

  Not lost as in I lost the trail, but lost as if Megan Jacobs had suddenly ceased to exist. If the girl’s trail had been a lit candle, someone had just blown it out.

  I gripped the brush harder. Still no Megan.

  I backtracked and tried again. No dice.

  Dammit.

  Rami Pirin was the son of a bitch who’d taught me everything I knew about seeking. I called him a son of a bitch because his lessons had been unrelenting and most times downright mean. He was also the best seeker I’d ever known or heard of. He could have done what I was trying to do. With my new Saghred-powered magical mojo, I should have been able to do it easily. Rami had taught me that only three things could have caused what had just happened: Megan had been killed; I’d screwed up and lost the trail; or a powerful someone didn’t want me finding Megan and had done some fancy magical footwork to ensure I didn’t.