“You get to be Merry’s age, and everybody’s either a boy or a girl to you,” D’Jenn said. “And, listen, boys—only tell Merry my name, alright? If anyone else asks you, you’ve never seen me, never heard of me, don’t know who I am. None of this ever happened. Got it?”
“I knew he was evil,” Berbin muttered to his brother. D’Jenn pretended not to have heard him.
“What about our mother?” Torbi asked. “If we don’t have a good story to tell her, she really will beat me up and down the street.”
“Me, too!” Berbin said.
“No, you’re the baby,” Torbi retorted. “I’m the big brother, so everything’s my fault all the time. You do something wrong, I get beat for showing you how.”
“That’s not how it works,” Berbin muttered, but D’Jenn saw doubt on his face. D’Jenn had no brothers or sisters, but he had seen Dormael get blamed for things Allen had done in their youth. Allen had used that to his advantage right up until the day Dormael had been taken to the Conclave. He smiled in remembrance for a moment, but the pain in his body brought him back to the present.
“Fine—you can tell your mother,” D’Jenn said. His eyes went unbidden to the sky. It yawned above him, empty and threatening.
“Alright,” Torbi said. He hesitated, looked to his brother. The two of them kicked their feet against their ankles, as if they expected something more from him.
“Is there something else you need, kid?”
“Well…I don’t know, I just…are we done?” Torbi said. He hunched his shoulders and looked at the ground. He traced a circle in the wet dirt at his feet.
D’Jenn sighed. “Come here, both of you. Bring that bag of silver I gave you.”
Torbi obliged him, moving to pull the purse out of the canoe. Berbin was beaming as he crowded in behind his brother. Torbi came over and offered him the purse, but D’Jenn pushed it back into his hands.
“It’s yours now, kid—both of you.” D’Jenn felt the need to stipulate that. “Reach in and pull out two marks.” Torbi reached inside and pulled the marks from the purse, showing them to D’Jenn in his open palm. D’Jenn took one of the marks and gave it to Berbin. “Alright, boys, I’m going to leave you with a bit of magic as a parting gift, alright? Something for each of you. Ready?”
The boys nodded.
“Alright.” D’Jenn closed his eyes and summoned his Kai, wincing at the headache that accompanied it. He had expected as much. His body still needed a week’s worth of recovery before he would be close to full strength. Still, he needed to get used to using what little of his magic he could stand. Pain would have to become his close companion over the next few days.
He poured a trickle of magic into the silver, adding a tingle so the kids would get a kick out of it. Sure enough, Berbin and Torbi both made awed exclamations as the money in their hands reacted to his magic. He linked the pieces together just as he and Dormael had done so many times, and then flattened them into disks. When the boys opened their hands to find smooth silver talismans, they turned wide eyes on D’Jenn.
“Keep these close to you,” he said. “As long as you’re both wearing them, you’ll always be able to find one another. There’s only one catch—you’ve got to learn to hear magic before you can use them. Savvy?”
“He’ll always know where I am?” Torbi asked.
“In a way,” D’Jenn replied.
“You mean all the time? What if I take mine off? Will he still know where I am then?”
“It doesn’t work exactly like that,” D’Jenn said.
“You just don’t want me to tell Ma how much time you spend with the girls in the East Market,” Berbin said.
“That’s not it!”
“Stay out of the East Market, kid,” D’Jenn laughed. “Those girls are nothing but trouble for the likes of you.”
“Pretty, though,” Torbi said. “There’s one—Jevenda’s her name—she’s all dusky. Said she’s from Moravia, was a pirate on the Southern Seas. She said she sank a Sheran warship and now the whole Sheran Navy’s after her, so she’s got to hide out in Ishamael. Prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.”
D’Jenn sighed and turned toward the woods.
“Back home with you two,” he said over his shoulder. “Remember what I said.”
“We will!” they yelled.
He paused at the edge of the woods and watched the two boys push off into the river. The current started carrying them toward the middle, and the little rats almost dumped themselves overboard while standing to wave back at the shore. D’Jenn smiled and waved back.
For a moment, he worried about having told the boys so much. Victus might be able to track them down and question them about the direction in which he’d fled. After a minute thinking it over, he decided that it didn’t matter. There were only so many places he could have gone, and by the time Torbi and Berbin ever became a problem, the information they could provide would be useless.
D’Jenn turned to look at the woods, and sighed with dread. His body begged to lie down and sleep, but he knew he had to get moving. Someone was already looking for him, and in his condition, he was unlikely to out-pace them. If he could muster enough magical strength to take another form—perhaps that of the wolf—he could disappear into the forest. The way his head throbbed with the smallest use of magic, though, would prevent that feat for at least a few days.
The only thing I can do is choose the place where I face them.
D’Jenn checked the sky one last time, listening for the song of another wizard. The morning was cool, full of the noises of an awakening forest, but empty of hostile magic. He might have a day, maybe two, before his pursuer caught up to him. He had to get moving.
Gritting his teeth, D’Jenn limped into the woods.
***
Injured animals always left a trail. Cripple a hart, and it dragged a limb behind it. A bleeding hog left a swath of bloody destruction in the underbrush. D’Jenn wasn’t quite as bad as a bleeding animal, but he knew there was little use in trying to cover his trail. His body was too stiff to move with care, and a skilled tracker could find him regardless of whatever precautions he tried to take.
Which meant that any of the Warlocks could find him—it was only a matter of time before they did.
The forest on the eastern side of the river was sparse. The Runemian valley was some of the most fertile land between all seven tribes, and as such, was packed with farms and villages. The mere presence of nearby people leached some of the wildness from the woods, and they were well-hunted to boot. The going was easier than it could have been, though D’Jenn’s muscles wouldn’t have agreed.
The morning was surprisingly warm. It had been a full day since D’Jenn’s dip into the river, though he hadn’t bothered to dry himself with magic. His clothing had absorbed the fishy smell of the water, and it was still damp in certain places. Even with the wetness clinging to his skin, the day wasn’t cool enough for shivering. Winter, it seemed, was turning to spring.
D’Jenn tried to move northward, though he was also mindful to keep heading toward the denser parts of the forest. He could feel Dormael’s coin pulsing somewhere to the east, maybe northeast, but D’Jenn knew he could never make it there in time. If he risked a Mind Flight and begged his cousin’s help, he might be detected. It was also possible that Dormael was too far away to do anything to help. Judging by the feel of the magic in the coin, he was at least a day’s travel distant, though it got tricky to discern after the coins got too far from one another. It could be one day, or three days.
D’Jenn was alone.
While he moved through the woods, he tried to come up with a plan. In his current state, there was no way he would be fit to fight off another wizard with magic. If he got Splintered even once, his body would betray any attempt to regain his Kai for at least a full day, maybe more. His uses of magic had to be rudimentary in nature, and infrequent. Every time he used it, he would weaken himself.
He wasn’t sure how far he had go
ne by the afternoon, but his body made him feel every step. The sunlight painted the forest in hues of dark green and deep orange. He came upon what looked like an abandoned hunter’s camp, and began looking for a source of water. D’Jenn was relieved when he found a creek, which had a bush full of fat berries growing beside it. His stomach growled.
When he made to pick the berries, though, he had to clamp down on his hunger. The fruits themselves were red, and each one had a black spot over its skin. They were as fat as grapes, and just as sweet. One taste, though, would send a full grown man into a pain-induced coma for an entire day. A careless child would die of convulsions from a single bite. Apothecaries called them Widow’s Eyes.
D’Jenn cursed and resigned himself to an empty stomach, but stopped as he made to leave. Instead, he picked a handful of the dangerous berries and tucked them away. He wasn’t sure how he could use them, but any advantage the gods were willing to drop in his path was welcome. The bastards sure hadn’t done anything to help him with Victus, so they owed him a few poison berries.
He might have traded them for real food, though.
That night he sat reticent in the dark. He didn’t dare risk a fire, though the dark had brought a chill that threatened to creep into his bones. He opened his Kai and meditated in order to keep the hunger at bay.
He needed to think. The only thing to do was to set a trap—that much he had realized. There was no way he could flee, and he was too weak to fight. How to trap a wizard, though, without magic? He could try and construct a Greater Circle, such as the kind that Inera had used to suppress Dormael’s power, but there were a few problems with that approach.
For one, the material used to construct the Circle couldn’t be made from something similar to the surrounding environment. When constructing a Greater Circle on stone, for instance, it was best to use glass beads, or perhaps some form of plant material. Here in the forest everything was made of wood, growing things, and dirt. If D’Jenn tried to build a Circle from such homologous things, the magic would fail to inhabit the Circle. It would be useless.
How to outsmart someone as clever and resourceful as himself? Warlocks all went through the same training regimen, and were equally dangerous in any number of different ways. Getting clear of this wouldn’t be easy.
It had been too long since D’Jenn had faced an opponent so deadly. The complacency that had developed in that vacuum was what had led to his ill-fated attempt on Victus’s life. It was what had put him in the woods, in damp clothing, head aching, belly grumbling, with his death following close behind. His own laziness was what hunted him—to that, D’Jenn had little doubt.
He took a deep breath, and pushed his anxiety into the quiet recesses of his mind.
If he were the stalker, what would he expect to find? What would Victus have told his cronies before sending them to search for his assassin? He had thrown D’Jenn from one of the highest windows of the Conclave Proper, and blasted him with lightning as a parting gift. His pursuer would expect D’Jenn to be wounded—perhaps they would be surprised to have found him alive at all. D’Jenn had felt the magical presence searching along the river, and he knew that they had detected something. The illusion he had thrown up had only served to disguise his exact position, but he had known when it happened that it was a matter of time before someone would come to check it out. They would find his trail, and follow him back to his hiding spot. They would be the coursing hound, sniffing at the trail of a wounded animal. They would likewise be expecting him to hunker down and fight like the cornered beast they imagined him to be.
The biting part was that it was true—he was a wounded, cornered beast. The fight was coming to him whether he wanted it or not, and he had nowhere to run. All he had was a belt knife, some damp clothing, and a pocketful of Widow’s Eyes.
What in the Six Hells can I do with that?
D’Jenn rested his back against the trunk of a tree while he meditated, and fell into a half-dozing state. He dreamed while he sat there—dark figures towering over him, flitting through the woods, or grabbing at his ankles. In the dreams, his magic never came to him.
He woke from his short slumber, muscles twisted into rigidity. The night was still thick, the moon nearing its apex. It shone silver beams down through the canopy, and illuminated the breath that misted before D’Jenn’s face. He spent a few moments drinking water and trying to stretch, but he didn’t tarry long. Once his body felt up to the task, he set out moving.
His Kai came no easier than it had before, and the familiar throb behind his eyes made him want to grind his teeth together. He let his magic slumber so as not to expend himself, but kept his Kai open to listen to the magical currents running through the forest. The ability to hear his enemy coming was his only real contingency.
D’Jenn was no closer to a plan than he had been before his nap. He was hoping to find a cave, maybe a hollow—a place where he could hunker down and wait. Instinct made him wish for a defensible position, though his logic spoke against the notion. He realized after a few hours that he had been hoping to cross paths with something that would inspire him, or provide some vague assistance. Perhaps the gods would show him favor.
Perhaps they would bring his doom instead.
By the time the sun began to cut through the morning, D’Jenn knew he was out of luck. There had been nothing—no cave, no hollow, no favor from the gods. His legs were shaking from his efforts, and his chest was heaving. The burn on his arm still sung with pain, as did the rest of his body. The urge to lie down had almost convinced him the walk was futile when he stumbled into an abandoned homestead.
The place was ancient. A tree had grown through the remains of what had once been a stone building, though very few stones remained. The ones that did had been choked by undergrowth, pushed aside and conquered by the ravages of time. All that remained was a courtyard and the ruins of a stone building.
The first thing D’Jenn noticed, though, was the burbling sound of a nearby creek. He stumbled toward it, coming upon a brook wide enough for swimming. D’Jenn splashed into the water, heedless of the temperature and the noise he made. The water felt refreshing on his body, and he plopped to his knees to wash it over his head.
With the water came clarity. This flight through the woods was futile. His hopes of gaining advantage were futile. For a single, crushing moment, D’Jenn felt the weight of inevitability, like an axe poised above his neck. He fished a rock from the creek bed and threw it into the water—an angry gesture even more fruitless than his flight.
Think, damn you!
A knife, the clothes on his back, and a pocketful of Widow’s Eyes. A day to work at the longest, half of one at the shortest. An untold number of things that could go wrong in ten thousand gods-damned ways.
D’Jenn reached into his pocket and grabbed the poison berries in a tentative hand. How could he trick his pursuer into eating them? The short answer was that he couldn’t. For one thing, he didn’t have a cup from which to drink. For another, a drink offered from the hand of an enemy would be suspect no matter what. Only a fool would drink.
D’Jenn laid the berries on a rock near the shore. What did he know of them, other than the lore that all children had been taught? He knew they were poisonous, but to what extent? Did one have to swallow, or was contact enough to induce a reaction?
There was only one way to find out.
D’Jenn picked one of the smaller berries out of the bunch, and drew the belt knife. He waded out to where the water was high enough to reach his waist, and slit the skin of the berry with a careful motion. Holding it at arm’s-length, he sheathed his belt knife and took a deep breath.
“Let’s see how bad you sting.”
D’Jenn wiped his finger in the berry’s juice, and tasted his finger before he could second-guess himself. It tasted wonderful, and D’Jenn began to smile. For one blessed second, he thought the threat of the berries had been overplayed.
Then fire erupted along his tongue. It came on with
such rapidity that the muscles in his mouth seized with pain. His finger, too, was burning at the touch of the deadly juice. D’Jenn tossed the berry downstream and shoveled handfuls of the cold creek-water into his burning mouth.
The water helped, but his tongue hurt for what felt like hours. The pain faded slowly, which seemed unfair given the suddenness with which it had struck. His finger burned just as bad as his tongue, and throbbed for longer.
“Stupid,” D’Jenn said, practicing the word. His tongue felt thick and useless in his mouth. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.” What kind of a fool tasted poison for a lark?
Only a fool would drink.
D’Jenn paused. He smiled, though the movement still caused some pain. His eyes went to the berries lying on the stone, and an idea began to form. He looked to the sky.
Half a day at the shortest, he thought. Better get started.
***
The little farmhouse was much like the others in this part of the valley. It was squat, wooden, and bordered by a stone wall enclosing the fields around it. This particular dwelling was far out from the nearby village, and occupied a larger plot of land than the others in the region. The family that lived there must have been wealthier than their neighbors, and enjoyed a measure of solitude as a result.
It would be their downfall.
Maarkov could hear laughter ringing out through the night, the sounds of a family gathered around the hearth for an evening meal. A few of those voices were children, as they often were. He fingered the hilt of his sword and tried to count the number of little cadavers he’d helped to make since things had turned sour. He couldn’t reach a conclusive number.
Poor little bastards.
Maarkov could smell roasting meat when the wind blew from the direction of the homestead. It was far better than the stench of the Hunter and all the strega, and it made his stomach growl. As soon as the thought entered his mind, though, his hunger turned to disgust. The meal that lay in store for him was nothing so enjoyable as a roasted leg of lamb.
The Seven Signs: Three Book Collection Page 92
