“I’ve . . . just been through a lot,” Eva said. “I try to remember, and when things come through, it feels like everything is there, but then it fades.” She said the last part of her sentence slowly, then shook her head. “I try not to think about it, but it’s difficult for me. Memories come back to me at times, but I’ve started to wonder if I will ever recall it all.”
It was the most Eva had ever shared with her about what she’d been through, and Jayna wasn’t quite sure where to start.
“Does this have to do with the dwaring?”
“No,” Eva said. She turned, jerking her hand free from Jayna, and stormed off down the street.
Jayna didn’t know what to do or say, and let her march away from her.
She had to figure out what was going on, but she didn’t know how to start. Helping others was generally easy. Most of the time, people came to her when they needed something, but Eva had stayed with her partly because she had needed something, and partly for other reasons. It was those other reasons Jayna didn’t understand and thought she needed to figure out. If she could, then maybe she could help Eva even more.
Jayna hurried along the street until she caught up to her. Eva swept her gaze along the buildings, looking from door to door.
“Is it one of these?” Jayna asked.
Eva looked over, and there was a hollow darkness in her eyes. “I was told that it’s a building without an awning. No post. Just a marking on the door.”
“Is there anything about the marking you can tell me about so I can help you find it?”
Eva clenched her jaw, and Jayna wondered what retort she was biting back. “No. I’ll know the shop when I see it.”
Jayna fell silent.
They made their way down the street, moving a little more slowly. Eva paused at many of the buildings, studying the doors before moving onward. It seemed as if she took a long time before heading to the next, then the next, and each time she paused, she frowned as she regarded the doorway.
Eva traced her finger along a symbol on one of the doors. It looked almost like a large bird, but it was different from any she had seen before. It had a wide head, large eyes, and a narrow beak. “This is it,” she said softly.
She pushed open the door, and Jayna looked along the street for a moment, seeing no other movement, before following Eva in.
The first thing she noticed was the strange haze in the air. It was more than the humidity found within the city, more of a smoky sort of haze. It hovered over everything, but was strongest when she first stepped into the shop, reminding her of the smoke Eva sometimes emitted.
It started to clear as she followed Eva a bit farther forward. As soon as she was inside, she reached for her sorcery and tried to ready a protective spell, but found she could not.
She looked back at the haze, realizing it was some sort of smoky protection that separated her from magic.
This place was dangerous.
When she turned back to Eva to say something, Eva gave her a warning glance.
“May I help you?” an old, creaky voice said from the back of the shop.
Jayna barely had a moment to scan the contents of the shop, noting shelves filled with strange items. Many of them had incredibly detailed carvings, obviously enchantments, and others contained a mixture of powders and leaves and oils, items used in medicinals, healing, but also for other sorcery-related purposes. In the corner, she saw what looked to be the bones of some strange-looking creature, a cat, maybe a wolf, but she followed Eva toward the opposite end of the shop before she had an opportunity to study it too long. The smoky haze trailed after her, clouding around her and making everything difficult for her to fully see.
“You must be Master Raollet,” Eva said, speaking slowly. Her voice was soft, and it carried a hint of smoke on it.
The old man leaned forward. He had a high forehead, wispy gray hair, deep wrinkles along his brow, and thick glasses that drooped down to his nose. He rested one gnarled hand on a curved cane, leaning toward her. “I am Master Raollet, but I'm afraid I don't know you.”
Eva looked over to Jayna before turning her attention back to Raollet.
This was supposed to be scouting. That was it.
“We are just here for a few specific items of an unusual nature.”
Eva hadn't shared their names.
Which meant she was concerned for their safety with this man.
Master Raollet cackled. “Of course you did. You won't find what I have anywhere else in the city.”
That was what Eva had heard from other sources. It had to be the reason Nev sent them here.
Eva had her hands limp at her sides, and she noticed one of the strange stone enchantments clutched in either of Raollet’s hands.
Eva was worried.
Why hadn't she said anything more?
They could have been prepared for danger, but maybe there wasn't any way to truly be prepared.
They had to get out, come back when Raollet wasn't here.
Jayna wasn't helpless. Her connection to sorcery might be gone, but she still had the dragon stone ring. She started to focus on it, and caught a slight shake of Eva's head.
How had Eva even known she was reaching for magic?
Unless she had only suspected.
“What are you looking for? As you can see, I have many unusual items within my shop. Most people come looking for specific artifacts—relics, as it were—while others come looking for enchantments they can't find elsewhere.”
Artifacts. What he meant were enchantments. Jayna was increasingly certain that he had enchantments around him beyond what were visible.
She looked at the cane. It was far too intricately carved to be anything but an enchantment. An incredibly large one, at that. A cane like that would be expensive.
Unless he hadn’t paid for it.
He could have made the enchantment, but the skill level for something like that would require someone with significant magic. Jayna should have detected that kind of power—and she didn’t detect anything like that now.
There were other ways of earning enchantments. Sorcerers of all stripes bartered for their services. That was one aspect of being a sorcerer that had been taught to her within the Academy. One simply didn’t need to pay for everything. Sorcerers earned money by their magic and the knowledge they acquired at the Academy, but a sorcerer’s skills were in high demand, and they could also barter for enchantments or other items.
That had to be what Master Raollet had done.
What was the purpose of the cane though?
She couldn’t tell anything just by looking at it, and without having access to her magic, she wouldn’t be able to probe at it nearly as well as she needed in order to determine the enchantment upon it.
She might be able to use the dragon stone ring. It had benefits in detecting other kinds of magic, but she had a feeling she shouldn’t. There was danger in it.
“We are looking for something most unusual,” Eva started then hesitated. Smoke drifted past her, past Master Raollet, and along the back hall.
Jayna needed to be ready.
“You said that,” Master Raollet said. A grin came to his face. “A love potion? I'm afraid I don't carry those, though there are some shops in town that purport to use them. There might be some dular who have potential to create that. Dangerous magic, if you ask me.” He tapped his cane on the ground, as if to emphasize how dark and dangerous he thought it to be. “I do have some—”
Eva suddenly pushed past him.
Master Raollet tapped his cane again. “What are you doing?”
Eva looked back at Jayna, smoke swirling around her.
It moved past and into a hall behind her.
There was a look that crossed into Eva's eyes, one that Jayna had only seen a few times.
Darkness. Violence.
Most of the time, Eva remained fairly impassive—neutral, even.
There had been a few times she had raged, but Eva never really
understood why, as it usually involved a trigger she couldn't remember.
But that violence flashed in her eyes now.
Jayna hurried forward. If the violence were to somehow involve Master Raollet, then she needed to intervene.
“I'm sorry about my friend,” Jayna said hurriedly. “We are just looking for something in particular. It is not a very common ingredient, but we have a dular who might be able to use it in a particular enchantment we need.”
Eva reached the door at the back of the shop.
Jayna had to work quickly.
“And we heard you might have it.”
Master Raollet turned toward her, pushing his glasses up on his nose. He didn't tap the cane this time. That seemed significant to her.
“All we need are fairy fingers.”
Master Raollet stiffened. “Just the fingers? Such a terrible thing. Who is this sorcerer who is helping you?”
There was a slight gleam in his eye. Jayna looked at Master Raollet with a different perspective now. The items in the shop took on a very different possibility. What if he were the sorcerer who had created them? What if he were selling his items? What if the enchantment in the cane was one he had, in fact, created?
There were dular in the city, though she hadn't learned how powerful they were. They had to have some potential though. Dular could create enchantments that were not as powerful as those made with true sorcery, but the right craftsperson could still generate considerable magic within them.
There an enchantment that separated her from her power when entering his shop. That was a powerful bit of magic. She could use something like that. She might have to ask Master Raollet about it.
“I cannot help with something like that. What kind of person would I be if I were to offer fairy fingers?”
Eva turned to him, and some of the tension left her. Smoke swirled slightly, flowing toward him. “You could offer us the fairy,” she said.
“The price would be considerable,” he said carefully.
“He doesn't have them,” Eva said, looking to Jayna. “We might as well go to Telluminder's shop. I hear he has a better supply.”
“Now, that's unnecessary.” His tone changed. “I don't think you need to go to Telluminder. I suppose I could part with a few fingers.”
He motioned for them to follow, glancing at Eva for a moment as he moved past her and into a back hallway.
“What has gotten into you?”
“There’s something here. I can feel it. It’s rubbing at me, as if it's burning me,” Eva said. She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and smoke drifted from her. “I don't understand it.”
“Get yourself together. We only came here to scout.”
“But now we’re buying the fingers.”
They headed along the hall, following Master Raollet, and reached a door. There were strips of iron running through it, crisscrossing over it, and he pulled out a key from his keychain and slipped it into the lock.
“Pardon the mess back here. I don’t have nearly as many people interested in acquiring items like this. As I’m sure you can understand, I will require payment up front.”
“How much?” Eva asked.
“I will part with the fingers for one gold coin each. I don’t know what sort of spell you intend, but unfortunately, it might take a few of them.”
A gold coin for each finger? The price was exorbitant, but it was also horrifying to her that she was thinking about paying it.
Eva glared at her.
Jayna reached into her pouch, flipping through the coins. She had several gold coins, but it was the vast part of their wealth. Once they spent that, she would have to start back from scratch. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have any way of earning money. She could resort back to the illegal sorcery, or minor sorcery, as Char had called it. She could earn more back. Or she could even ask Ceran for money, but he seemed like he was above such things.
She pulled out four gold coins and handed them over to Master Raollet.
“Very well.”
He unlocked the door and pushed it open.
The smell that drifted out from the other side was foul, a mixture of rot and shit and urine, along with something else that she couldn’t quite place. Something equally unpleasant.
“Like I said, pardon the mess.”
He reached into his pocket and held up an enchantment that cast the room in a soft, glowing light.
Jayna froze.
Bars of metal ran along the length of the room at the far end. They stretched from floor to ceiling, though given that this was one of the older buildings in the city, the ceiling wasn’t very high. They were crisscrossed with other metal, creating a cell.
Behind it were three people.
Not people.
El’aras.
Fairies.
The El’aras could pass as human, but were not. They possessed innate power and used it differently than sorcerers, and had once occupied all of these lands before leaving them long ago. The three in the cage were of different ages, and all poorly dressed and dirty.
She swallowed.
“Now, it will take a bit of wrangling for me to pull them forward so we can harvest the fingers, so you will have to tolerate a little bit of screaming.” He spoke it so matter-of-factly that Jayna could feel her entire being clenching.
“As you know, though the fingers are delicate, they take a little bit more force than you would imagine to separate from their bodies. Their bones are quite hard. Thankfully, I have had access to resources.”
Resources. He meant people who knew how to carve up the El’aras.
She looked over to Eva and found her staring straight ahead.
The old proprietor grabbed a strange metal hook from the wall and slipped it between the bars, reaching toward the youngest of the El’aras. He couldn’t have been any more than thirteen or fourteen, little more than Jonathan had been in her dream. He had dark hair that reminded her of her brother, though his long face and delicate features looked nothing like him.
The other El’aras had tried to press closer, but they shied away from the hook.
“Get over here.” He glanced over to Eva. “The young ones don’t cry out as much. You would think the older ones would do better, but surprisingly, it’s the young ones that do.”
He dragged the El’aras toward the bars, and though the boy struggled, trembling, he didn’t cry out at all.
Jayna started shaking her head.
This was supposed to be just scouting.
Now it was about something else.
Jayna had chased dark magic enough to recognize it. That could be the only reason the El'aras were here.
And maybe that was why Gabranth had been in the market.
Dark magic required a sacrifice. Pain.
El'aras had considerable magic of their own.
What better sacrifice than this?
Either she got the fingers—used them to track the sorcerers, then stop the Festival of Mourn and their attempt to release Asymorn—or she stopped this.
Even releasing the El'aras would probably not stop the festival.
She needed to find the sorcerers.
Knowing what she did, and what they had planned, what was the sacrifice of a few El'aras fingers? It wouldn't kill them.
Still, the idea of disfiguring El'aras just because of that magic sickened her. It was dark magic.
And she was not a dark magic user.
“Wait,” she said to Master Raollet.
He pressed the hook down with one foot, and held on to a pair of strange scissors in his other hand, reaching for the boy’s hand.
“Wait? Don’t you need the fingers?”
“I want to pick a different one.”
Master Raollet started to smile. “I see. You want someone with a little bit of age and experience. I suppose that might matter to a spell.”
She had no idea whether it would, but the idea that she would harvest from one of the El’aras made her n
early throw up.
He released the hook, and the boy scampered back to the others.
“Which one would you like?” Master Raollet asked. “The man has been here for a few weeks. He used to be heartier, but he hasn’t really ate since he’s been here. The other one, the old woman, was only brought to me last week. Caught her sneaking around in the forest.” He glanced over to Jayna. “I have a deal with the patrols, you see. They bring me the fairies in exchange for a cut of the profits. Been coming around this area more often lately, which means my business has been good.” He grinned before looking back at the female El’aras. “This one is still quite vibrant, if a little ugly.” He cackled. “I suppose it doesn’t matter that she’s ugly. We’re only using her fingers.”
Jayna studied the woman. She didn’t look ugly to her. She reminded her of her mother. She had the same golden hair, though dirty and unkempt from her time in the cell. Her eyes were a pale blue, the color of the sky, and her skin had a soft sheen to it, sweating from the heat and humidity of the room—either that, or the proximity to the strange bars that held them in place. Somehow, those bars had to neutralize the El’aras magic. Otherwise, they would have been able to escape on their own.
She thought they were a family, but wondered if that assumption weren’t wrong.
“The woman,” she said.
The female El’aras’s eyes widened.
Master Raollet shoved the hook into the cell.
“You need to do this to stop the Festival,” Eva said, her voice a whisper.
The El'aras woman seemed to hear. Jayna didn't know much about the El'aras, though there were rumors that they had powerful eyesight. Powerful hearing. Power in general.
“Not this way,” she said. “There has to be another way to stop Gabranth.”
Jayna used that opportunity to hold up her hand. Eva tried grabbing for her, but Jayna was quick. She reached for the power through the dragon stone ring, feeling it building.
The woman looked at her own hand’s, looked up to Jayna, and nodded.
She knew.
Jayna angled at the wall behind them and poured power out of herself.
She pulled raw magic through the dragon stone ring and it exploded, shattering the stone behind them.
Festival of Mourn (The Dark Sorcerer Book 1) Page 17
