by Mirren Hogan
Darai jerked his head sideways, but the shadow’s tongue raked over his cheek, the magic sliding off his skin onto that moist length.
The shadow slurped, withdrew its tongue, and smacked its lips, or whatever passed for lips.
It was eating the magic.
Its mouth curved into what Darai took for a smile, revealing a mouth devoid of teeth or anything he would associate with a mouth except for the tongue. That snaked out again toward his cheek, but this time the shadow lowered its head and wrapped its arms around Darai’s torso, holding him firm.
Darai strained against the creature, the only sounds audible his breathing and the rattling, rasping breath of the shadow. Even in the deepest night, while the harvested ones slept, it was never this quiet. There were always people moving about, noises from the city, distant music.
Where was he then? How had the shadow removed him from the pens without rousing the sorcerers? Unless . . . unless the creature was a pet of the sorcerers and worked here with their blessing. Perhaps this was how they sucked the magic from those unlucky or unwise enough to be caught in the crimson storm. He didn’t remember being taken from the pens, but the gods knew what might be done to make him forget. The thought chilled his blood more than any speculation he’d done thus far. He was going to die, and no one was going to stop it.
The shadow’s tongue was rough against his neck, his cheek, his face, licking and drawing the magic from him and his strength with it. With every flash of red that slid from him to the maw of the shadow, Darai weakened. He ceased his struggles, his gaze moving skyward. All he could do was lie in the shadow’s arms and wait to die.
***
Adina frowned. In her weeks here in Dassane, she’d never found Darai to be unreliable. And yet, she peered into the courtyard, seeing only darkness and not the young man from Nageso. He’d sworn he’d meet her there after the sorcerers completed their removal, as they did every night. Together, they reassured each other that they had another day to try to find a way out. Another day to live and hope. She knew he hadn’t been removed, she too had seen the sorcerers come, and Jali leave. For a moment, she was sure they’d come for her, but they’d turned to the others. Guilt racked her, that a child suffered when she might have in his place. Relief swamped the grief though, she had more time yet. The feeling faded when she couldn’t find Darai.
It was dark outside, almost impenetrably so, like a black net had been thrown over the courtyard. She squinted, trying to make out a shape in the corner. No, it was like a shadow; one that moved.
“Darai?” she whispered.
She stepped forward, moving tentatively, every muscle tense. “Is someone there?”
It was then that she saw Darai’s legs protruding from the darkness, and the shadow licking and sucking at him while the magic danced between them. The shadow stilled, then slowly turned its flaming eyes to regard her.
Adina only hesitated for a moment before she screamed.
***
Darai lay in the infirmary, his body still, pulse slow and faint. His skin was cool and clammy. There wasn’t a single mark on his body.
Tabia chewed her lip in concentration as a tendril of magic wove itself through the air from the tip of her index finger to the side of Darai’s chest. She probed gently past his skin, skimming past bones. Her magic showed her its path through him, like a set of eyes. She saw his blood pumping through him, slowly, but surely, like hundreds, thousands of sparkling white and red stars.
The magic probed deeper, cautiously moving toward his heart. Here, he was the most fragile. She saw the weakness centred like a patch of parched land in a flood plain. She pushed the magic in to circle his heart, massaging gently, trying to encourage it to work just a fraction harder. She could pump it for him, but eventually she’d tire with no guarantee he’d have been saved for anything more than a few extra hours.
From here, she could clamp her magic down on his heart to stop it from pumping at all. It was a terrible gift, or curse, one she’d shared only with Harshal. It was a far too dangerous a skill to teach any other than the man she thought she could trust. Could trust, she corrected herself. That was clear now. Whoever or whatever was killing in the guildhall, it wasn’t Harshal. She felt foolish for even considering that he’d ever take a life, other than in defence. Zuleso, she hadn’t been much of a friend lately.
She owed him an apology, but that would have to wait until later. She wouldn’t stop Darai’s heart unless he would clearly not recover, and was suffering. Neither was clear and she’d not give up on him yet.
Releasing his heart, she was encouraged by its increased strength and moved up, toward his mind. In spite of the attack, she found his body still tantalisingly drenched in magic.
His mind seemed undamaged. Tabia could see his thoughts darting around his brain like minuscule lights, not discernible as ideas. The rate at which they moved was encouraging. They slipped and slid along their pathways like a group of partygoers with torches. Had they been sluggish and fewer in number, Tabia would have known his mind was too far gone.
She searched carefully though the delicate corners of his mind, seeking any damage and finding only a block in the area that controlled his consciousness. This was what kept him from waking and although not worrying yet, if the block didn’t move soon, Darai may never wake.
Tabia gritted her teeth. This was something she couldn’t heal, not without huge risk. She might end up waking him and leave him with no more intellect than a child. She wouldn’t risk that, no matter what Sevele insisted. Darai was priceless as a witness, but he’d be no use at all with a ruined mind.
With a shake of her head, she drew her magic from his body and let it wink out into nothingness.
“Tabia?”
Tabia turned to Sevele and shook her head. “He lives. There’s no reason to suggest that he won’t fully recover. But there’s nothing I can do for him now.”
“Have you questioned the girl?” Sevele’s face was grim, more lined than she’d seen before. Tabia guessed he was taking these attacks personally.
“Not yet, I thought to give her time to have a mug of kawaha first. Ezeji was seeing to her.”
“Go to her now, get some answers.” Sevele rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and nodded toward the door.
“Get some rest?” Tabia raised her eyebrow at him and gave him a half smile as he patted her shoulder like a father.
“When this is over, sorcerer, when this is over.”
CHAPTER 17
The kawaha in Adina’s mug was cold. She wearily noticed as it sloshed over the side in her trembling hands and dripped its way down the sides of her fingers to pool on the table. To add, she corrected herself silently, to the already existing puddle. She hadn’t noticed spilling any before, but the mug was half empty and she’d only taken a sip.
“How are you feeling?” The sound of Tabia’s voice jerked her back to reality, to a place she didn’t want to be. Adina wished she could drown in the kawaha. Anything to get free of this place and these people, and that shadow.
“Shaken.” Adina spoke softly as if the sound of her voice would draw the shadow to her. “But I need to talk about it, if that’s all right?” She raised her eyes to Tabia’s as the sorcerer nodded.
“Of course, please. I’m sure anything you can tell us would help.” Of course, it was all about the good of the hall, not Adina herself. She squeezed her eyes shut, then forced them open as Tabia sat.
“That’s what killed those two people, isn’t it?” Adina heard the quaver in her own voice and set her mug aside before she wore the rest of her drink.
“I don’t know for certain,” Tabia shrugged regretfully, “but I’m beginning to think that might be the case. What did you see?”
Adina’s eyes dropped to the puddle on the table. In it she saw a reflection of the open door behind Tabia. It was late, almost midnight, and the room was lit by oil lamps, but outside was pitch black, as dark as the shadow. If it was hiding there, s
he couldn’t see it. Wouldn’t see it until it was too late . . . She shivered.
“There was a blackness, like someone threw a cloak over the night. But its eyes glowed like candles floating of their own accord. And its tongue . . . ” Adina shuddered. “It was licking Darai and the magic was . . . it was eating his magic. I think it would have sucked him dry like a . . . ”
Like the sorcerers planned to do, she thought. Maybe she should have left him to the shadow’s mercy; he’d be at rest now. Free.
Tabia nodded. “Like a Chaqian prune? Did Darai look as though he was in any pain?”
Adina thought for a moment, bringing up a mental image than made her uneasy anew. “No, I don’t think so,” she said. “He was lying so still, I think he was already unconscious when I found him. But I didn’t hear him scream or struggle or anything at all.”
“How did you know where to find him?”
Adina had expected the question, but she still had to pause before she replied. “I was supposed to meet him there. We like to know the other hasn’t been taken from the pens.” Was that too frank? Would it anger Tabia?
Apparently not, as Tabia only responded by repeating her nod. “You won’t have long to wait, although you may have to stay longer than I planned. Unless I’m wrong, you’d prefer to stay until you know that Darai is going to survive? It won’t be a popular decision with some, but I’ll deal with them.”
Adina felt her blood go cold as Tabia spoke so calmly about her fate. Was her life of so little consequence to the sorcerer that she’d dismiss it as if it was of less importance than what they’d give the harvested ones for the evening meal? She’d felt like little more than cattle since she’d been loaded onto the back of a wagon and brought here, but never so much as now. She found a knot of anger rising within her, but even now she dared not let it become a flame. Only for Darai’s sake. Only because Tabia was right, Adina couldn’t even go to her death without knowing that he would live.
“Thank you, sorcerer,” she said, her voice low and preoccupied. “I’d appreciate that.” Within her chest, surrounding the knot of frustration, the magic surged and hissed like water thrown onto a sizzling hotplate. She felt almost as if she could throw out a rope of magic and wrap it tightly around the assemblywoman’s neck. There, she’d squeeze it tight, take out everything on the woman and then find a way for her and Darai to leave.
Of course, that was impossible, she’d only absorbed the magic, she had no skill in her to use it. Even if she did, she had no staff to wield the burning red fire.
“Adina?” Tabia’s voice broke through her thoughts, shaming her instantly at the idea of such a violence of which Adina had never thought herself capable.
She raised her eyes to meet Tabia’s, finding only worry in the older woman’s expression. Concern, Adina was sure, as a man’s would be for the hen who gave him eggs and, when fat, would serve as his meal. Perhaps she was worried that the shadow would come for Adina before the sorcerers drained her.
“Yes?”
“I was just asking if you wanted to go and see Darai?”
“Yes,” Adina repeated. “Please.”
***
It was warm here, cradled in the arms of the Mother of all Gods. Safe and dark, like the womb. All around Darai, a soft red-pink light glowed, reminding him of the last of a fire’s embers. The air smelled sweet; honey laced with lavender. A breeze blew across his face, a soft caress, but gentle as the air on the lake near Nageso.
Something in the back of his mind triggered the odd thought—there were no lakes near Nageso. Forest and desert, plains, and small villages, but no lakes. There was a lake; he remembered seeing one far from home. His memory toyed with him for a while, supplanting images of his village resting beside a lake, on a lake, balancing on a raft in the middle of a vast, seemingly endless body of water—
Then another name—Dassane—and his mind brought him back to the present with a tight snap like the breaking of a dry twig. He rose, weightless, and moved like mist, slipping out a crack in the window frame and out into the city.
Looking back at himself, he was strangely not surprised to find his whole body transparent, ethereal, composed only of what looked like steam. The discovery didn’t alarm him in the least. He was light, he could float, fly, go anywhere he wanted with only a thought.
He found himself soaring toward the bastion, his speed such that Dassane was little more than a blur. The walls of the centre-most balcony loomed before him so quickly that he closed his eyes and winced, awaiting the certain impact. Even in this form, he would surely break as he slammed into the stone.
Instead, he had the strangest sensation of being born again—squeezed hard through the solid wall, his head compressed until it felt elongated. His body was pressed tight, arms all but becoming a part of his torso. He opened his eyes in time to see himself encased in stone and then he’d passed through it.
The room beyond the wall was dark, lit only by the stub of a candle. The flame danced shadows across one wall, blown into flickers by a breeze from an ajar window. The wall was made of dressed stone, the colour indiscernible in the gloom, but of a light shade. Much of its surface was covered in tapestries adding to the mood of the room: depicting images of former queens, strongly hinting at the inability of each to bear an heir for the king. A shrine of shame, a reminder to each successive queen of her duty and her fate should she not deliver.
Darai’s eyes crossed the room, his body following, hovering across a massive wooden table so shiny he saw the reflection of the golden ceiling. He didn’t think it odd that he couldn’t see himself, he wasn’t even sure that he was really there. He was dreaming, or a ghost, or some such.
At the far side of the room, a young woman sat huddled in a chair, a handmade quilt wrapped around herself against the cold. Even in the dimness, Darai could make out every shade of the quilt, every stitch resting uppermost; even a small tear in one of the finely stitched seams. The quilt was as odd as the tapestries, woven in red, blue, gold, and black with images of young women, men in crowns and several sorcerers weaving magic across its wool. It was an intricate scene of violence and condemnation, although it was unnoticed and unseen now by the woman.
Her glistening eyes reflected the flame as if it were internal, rather than across the room. Down her dark cheeks ran twin paths of damp but silent misery. Her expression—mouth tugged down, her forehead creased in a frown—echoed her tears. Darai realised with a shock that it wasn’t her demeanour which had told him of her sadness first. He’d known it before laying eyes on her. He’d felt it the moment his smoky form passed through the outer walls. Her misery radiated from her like heat from the desert sand in the height of summer. It came across Darai in waves fit to knock his form from the air.
In that moment, he knew who she was, although her surroundings contributed to that conclusion. That and the clues he recalled Tabia giving him and Adina.
His bride has five years to conceive or bare bear a son. If she does conceive close to the end of those years, then the next mhari is put off until she gives birth. If there is no son or offspring, the king must put her aside and another mhari, or marriage, takes place with his next queen.
This was the queen, the woman who evidently would not be the queen for much longer. Only now did Darai see the bloodstained rag she held enclosed in her tight fist. He could guess at what it meant, although such women’s business was at best vague knowledge to him.
The queen radiated such grief at her situation, and her feeling of helplessness was so strong that Darai wondered that all of Dassane didn’t feel it. And yet it was his ethereal state that revealed her turmoil and made him want to find a way to help her.
He laughed aloud at the folly of his sentiments. As a man he was a prisoner of the sorcerers, as a boy he’d been a prisoner of the desert and the subsistent state in which his family lived. As he was, as a ghost he supposed, for he must surely be dead and lost on the way to the arms of the Mother of all Gods, he was as usef
ul as a two-legged warthog. Or less so, for he was no use as meat.
His laughter died echoing in his ears, replaced by a flash of anger. He remembered Adina now and the fate his apparent death had left her to. No matter, perhaps she’d be joining him soon enough. Her spirit would probably not be lost on the journey to the mother.
He looked toward the far wall, and in the next moment he was passing through it. He was in a smaller, less ornate room. It looked like a small bedroom. A pile of quilts and pillows covered the bed, while books took up a shelf that covered the opposite wall. A door to one side stood open. Movement caught his eye and a girl hurried inside and threw herself onto the quilts. Her features were blurred, like he was looking at her through smoke. His spirit must have been starting to decay.
“Hello?” She looked up at him, her eyes large and dark. He wasn’t sure she could see him, but it was clear that she knew he was there.
Her lips parted. “Who’s there?” she asked, her voice a hoarse whisper. She rose to her feet. Darai felt his heart pounding as her face was no more than a finger width from his. He could feel her breath tickling his nose and he wanted to sneeze. Instinctively he knew that if he did she would hear it. He resisted the reflex, although wondered at it, since he was dead.
The girl wasn’t so much staring at him she was staring through him. She raised an arm, her fingers outspread, questing. But her arm passed right through, her fingernails uncomfortably grazing his insides in spite of him being only a ghost. She waved her hand back and forth uncomfortably for Darai, but obviously feeling nothing. Looking mystified, she sank back down in the chair, pulled the quilt over herself, and hugged herself with arms.
In spite of himself and later he would not know why, Darai couldn’t help but try to contact her. “Can you hear me?”
She did, he could see it in the way her face looked up, right at him. “Who are you . . . what are you?” Her voice trembled in fear.
