Hunt for Valamon

by Mok, DK

  “There was sorcery involved in Prince Valamon’s abduction,” said Seris. “I think it’s in your interest for the culprit to be found before King Delmar returns.”

  Kaligara’s expression remained impassive, but something in her eyes made Seris feel like he’d just trodden on the wrong end of a snake.

  “That’s a dangerous accusation,” said Kaligara, her tone like the leisurely sharpening of a dagger.

  “I won’t be the one making it. But it won’t take long for the baying to start. Who among you could have done it, and who among you might have?”

  Kaligara’s eyes narrowed slightly as she studied Seris, and he could see a moment of struggle between something ancient and fearsome, and something more cautious and somehow diminished.

  “It would have been a transanimalia spell. I don’t know if any of us could have maintained it long enough to get the prince out of the capital. And perhaps motive isn’t the best place to start…”

  Seris wondered whether anyone else had the feeling they were in a room with a large, chained tiger who was patiently filing away at its collar. Seris kept his tone as polite as possible.

  “I think you can be a little more specific.”

  “I think you’re looking for the hand, when you should be looking for the man. ‘How’ is less important than ‘where’ and ‘who’. As I advised Lady Latricia, many things attributed to sorcery are actually the result of human meddlings. If you want to know where the prince is, try Sulim of Tigrath. Almost everything passes through Sulim eventually.”

  Seris executed a small bow.

  “Thank you for your assistance. One more question—what do you know about the Kali-Adelsa?”

  It was like waking up, or falling asleep, she couldn’t really tell. Elhan looked at the untouched drink in her hand, trying to shake the buzzing sensation from her head. She put the goblet down, the voices blurring into music, into laughter, into a roaring white noise.

  This had only happened once before, back in Elwood Forest, when she’d been stalking the cleric. She’d left him tied to a tree, his angry yelps echoing after her. Suddenly, everything had shifted, and she was in another forest—darker, thicker, a deeper green, the scent of fresh water sharp in the air. Unfamiliar flowers hung from heavy vines, and tiny scarlet birds flitted through the trees.

  Everything had spun again, and she was back in Elwood Forest, on her knees and gasping, a sick feeling in her stomach—like a deep, unbearable sorrow.

  She’d put it down to a bad omelette she’d had that morning, since the cleric seemed unable to use sorcery of any kind, either defensive or offensive, although his language had been both.

  Elhan felt the same dizzy sensation now, like she was seeing something that wasn’t quite there or was here at the same time as something that wasn’t supposed to be. She wondered if she were allergic to the cleric after all, if his moral radiance were somehow giving her gastrointestinal lupus. She found an unoccupied corner and clung to the gold lacework.

  There was a sudden sensation of turning inside out, and the world twisted away. She was somewhere else, a hall, but it made Penwyvern Manor look like a decaying outhouse. Above her, a cavernous, vaulted ceiling glittered with stalactites of living crystal, and the walls were a swirl of diamond dust and polished quartz. The pale blue floor rippled with light as thousands of lords and ladies glided across the surface, their gowns and cloaks shimmering in countless shades of silver and white. There was music like Elhan had never heard before, and it stirred in her both an exquisite joy and grief. Elhan moved to join the dance, but suddenly the world flipped again, and she was back in Penwyvern’s ballroom, a sheen of sweat dampening her skin.

  The worst thing about the damned curse was that every time she thought she had it figured out, something new would happen that left her reeling again. All she needed now was to lose her mind, and someone really would put her down like an animal. Elhan’s gaze flicked around the grand hall—it was only a matter of time before someone noticed her, and Seris had better be done by then.

  Elhan’s gaze snapped to a shadow moving down a nearby corridor, and she could just make out a figure as it turned to slink up a set of stairs. The figure wore a serving girl’s uniform, but slinking always attracted Elhan’s attention. Slinking usually led to something illicit, and therefore interesting. Throwing a glance at the oblivious nobles, Elhan surreptitiously slipped down the corridor.

  The brightly lit hallways were panelled in cedar, and huge tapestries covered the walls. Elhan tracked the figure up three more flights of stairs and down several winding corridors, into a softly lit wing of the manor. Decorative rugs ran the length of the halls, and brass lamps were affixed to the walls at regular intervals. Formal portraits hung between teak doors, and the noise from the ball downstairs was barely audible here.

  The figure moved with confident purpose, stopping finally outside an unmarked door. In the lamplight, Elhan could see it was a woman in her early twenties, with neatly braided hair the colour of acorns. Although the woman was dressed in a service uniform, something about the way she moved—all sinews and muscle—told Elhan that unless the duke liked his serving girls to slaughter the cattle themselves, this woman was a serving girl in the same way that Elhan was a page boy. This theory gained further credence when the woman slid a curved dagger from her dress and pushed quietly through the door.

  Elhan crept softly to the doorway, peering into the dim room. Two small beds lay silent in the moonlight, one against each wall. A wooden rocking horse sat motionless beside an open window, the woman and her dagger silhouetted against a starry sky.

  There were several things Elhan could have done at this point. Her main impulse was to watch what happened, then collect more cutlery before leaving. However, experience told her that, whatever happened in the room now, the Kali-Adelsa would be blamed later. She saw the dagger begin its downward arc.

  A beat of silence passed before the assassin realised there was a hand gripping the blade.

  “Hello,” said Elhan.

  Another blade flashed and Elhan ducked, twisting the first one from the woman’s grasp. A heavy boot landed on Elhan’s shin and she staggered into the bed, dodging another slash as the woman pulled away and sprinted from the room. In the darkness, Elhan saw two pairs of frightened eyes staring at her from behind quilted covers.

  “Tell your parents the Kali-Adelsa didn’t do it!” yelled Elhan as she ran from the room.

  The woman was already disappearing around the corner. Elhan pounded over the floorboards, chasing the figure through wings that had wings, up and down a dozen different winding stairs. The woman was fit and fast, dashing through the twisting halls like a rat trying to outrun a serval. Then Elhan realised the woman was trying to loop back to the ballroom—a serving girl could disappear into a crowd far more easily than the Kali-Adelsa.

  The woman raced desperately for the main staircase—Elhan wouldn’t reach her in time. With a deft swoop, Elhan grabbed the runner rug and yanked it hard. The carpet jerked and the woman crashed to the ground with a crack. She tried to roll back onto her feet, but her kneecap was in a different place from where it had been ten seconds earlier. The woman turned to Elhan, her eyes hostile and bright with pain.

  “Tell Duke Riordan that the time for his kind is over,” said the woman.

  “Um, I don’t actually know the duke.”

  The woman didn’t seem to hear, her eyes glowing with fervour as she pulled a strange object from her apron—a metal canister, about the size of a mug of ale. Elhan didn’t recognise it, but she could hazard a guess. Elhan started to run.

  He knew he was pushing his luck. Seris was actually surprised that his head hadn’t already exploded into a bouquet of berries or something similarly capricious. He clenched his sweaty palms as Kaligara turned indifferent eyes towards him.

  “The Kali-Adelsa has nothing to do with me,” she said. “And I’m not in the habit of giving away my time. Can you make it worth my time, cleric?”r />
  Seris was fairly sure he couldn’t, unless she was in dire need of a sweet potato or a spare pair of socks. However, being unable to use currency did give you a flair for creative negotiation.

  “Every moment you spend talking to me is time you’re not in conversation with inebriated nobles. And I think you find me marginally more interesting.”

  Seris believed that bluffing was not exactly the same as lying. Lying was saying something you knew wasn’t true. Bluffing was saying something that you hoped very much would spontaneously become true.

  “Very well,” said Kaligara. “Interest me.”

  “I’d like to know why you’re so afraid of the Kali-Adelsa. So much so that you have a warning system in place.”

  “People who spend too much time around the Kali-Adelsa tend to die in horribly unpredictable ways. It was quite inconsiderate of Olrios, which is probably why he skulked away to the borderlands. Unpredictable sorcerers are generally unwelcome in polite society.”

  “Surely sorcerers deal with curses all the time—creating, breaking, changing. What’s so dangerous about this one?”

  Kaligara’s lips curved upwards slightly, but Seris wouldn’t have called it a smile.

  “Poor little cleric, here’s what the rhyme doesn’t tell you. The curse doesn’t just give the Kali-Adelsa extraordinary luck and strength; it draws it from other things, other people. It’s not just a curse; it’s a powerful conversion spell, with her as the nexus.”

  Seris thought back to the pulse, the feeling that had swept over him at the archery challenge just before Elhan’s arrow loosed. It didn’t make sense to give such power to someone you wanted to curse.

  “Why did Olrios create it?”

  “I’m not interested in the why so much as the how. But you know what they say about sorcerers.”

  “They say a lot of things about sorcerers,” said Seris. “Just very, very quietly.”

  “Perhaps Olrios just wanted to see if he could. That’s what we sorcerers do, isn’t it?”

  Seris was only vaguely aware of the bitterness in her voice, still preoccupied with the image of the curse creating a wave of misfortune in its wake.

  “So, is it happening now? Is she drawing energy from people here as we speak?”

  Kaligara’s face suddenly changed. Not the expression. The face. The mask slipped for a moment, and Seris caught a glimpse of something no longer quite human, definitely not thirty, and very, very angry. As quickly as it slipped, it slid back into place, but Kaligara still looked pale with apprehension and fury.

  “Did you say ‘here’? Is she here, in the building?”

  “She should be, but she promised she—”

  The rest of Seris’s sentence was lost as an explosion thundered through the building. The ballroom rocked and broken needles of crystal rained from the chandeliers. Lanterns swung madly, spilling fire onto the floor, and the smell of smoke began to fill the hall. Screams of confusion ripped through the air, and the roar of fire could be heard from above. Guests began to stampede, and Seris tried urgently to herd people towards the main doors. As the flames spread, burning timber crashed from the ceiling, splintering the tables and scattering the candelabra.

  There was a sudden collective gasp, and all eyes turned to the back of the hall. On the landing of the grand staircase, framed in a massive arch of fire, he saw an unmistakeable figure. She stood like a diabolical shadow, like a demon of darkness and balefire, smoke rising from her like some infernal creature.

  The Kali-Adelsa was here.

  Through the curls of black smoke, they could see that she carried a golden-haired child under each arm.

  “Gods! It has the children!” shrieked the duchess.

  Seris thought he saw Elhan roll her eyes before she put down the two trembling children and shoved them towards the crowd. As she rose again, Elhan swept her gaze over the hysterical audience. And then she dove out a stained-glass window.

  “Excuse me,” said Seris faintly as he ran towards the exit.

  He caught Kaligara’s gaze as he passed, and he thought he saw the faintest flicker of cool amusement in her eyes. None of the other guests, however, looked anything other than insanely distressed, and as Seris burst into the night air, he could see a chaos of nobles, housekeepers, and kitchen staff staggering around the lawns. He stumbled across the damp grass and turned to see a tower of flame roaring into the sky. The entire manor was being engulfed, like a paper lantern in a bonfire. Seris felt a tug on his tunic, and he turned to see Elhan, still sooty and smoking.

  “Run,” said Elhan. “Just run.”

  Elhan sprinted down narrow alleys, skidding through puddles and leaping over carts. Already, makeshift checkpoints were springing up across the city, and she had to get out of Horizon’s Gate before it was locked down. Once the exits were closed, they’d have to fight their way out, and that’s how stories started. Pushing over two guards became the slaughter of a hundred Imperial soldiers. And after tonight’s appearance, Elhan didn’t need more publicity.

  When Seris started to slow, Elhan grabbed his tunic, dragging him behind her. He seemed to be squawking, but she was fairly certain that was normal. They raced through the silent markets, past darkened estates, into the slums, and out the other side. Elhan could see the Ranger’s Way ahead, the overgrown road once used by those on foot, before carts, carriages, and sailing ships became the preferred mode of transportation. She vaulted over the last wall and landed with a skid on the rocky path. Not slowing her pace, she pounded into the tall forest.

  She kept running, barely feeling the twigs whipping across her face. Everything became a homogenous blur when she was running, and all the running blurred into one long, endless race. She’d have liked to continue through until morning, since the Talgaran soldiers had horses, but Seris’s legs were dragging now. She stopped in a small grassy clearing and released his tunic.

  Seris staggered backwards, turned around in a mangled circle, then fell down. He lay in a peculiar position, gripping the grass as though he’d fall into the sky if he let go.

  “I thought,” gasped Seris, “I thought we agreed not to set things on fire.”

  “It wasn’t me!”

  Seris sat up tentatively, swaying slightly. “It just happened to catch on fire the night we were there.”

  “There was this woman, dressed like a serving girl, and she tried to kill the kids, and then she pulled out this thing, and everything exploded.”

  Seris looked at her sceptically, and Elhan turned away, shifting into the shadows.

  “It doesn’t matter.” She pulled off her charred page’s uniform and adjusted her hessian tunic.

  No matter what she said or did, people saw what they wanted to. She tried so hard to be friendly, but whenever she smiled, people freaked out. Whenever she tried to lend a hand, they ran screaming. After a while, it just became easier to skip straight to the screaming.

  Elhan sat down by a tall boulder, resting her back against the rock. Seris was staring at his blood-covered tunic, looking faint. After a few moments, he seemed to realise it wasn’t his blood.

  “What happened to your hand?” he said.

  Elhan shrugged, clenching her fist. Blood oozed between her fingers.

  “Go to sleep. I’m not going to drag you behind me tomorrow.”

  She closed her eyes, and after a pause, she heard Seris padding towards her. Elhan opened one eye.

  “You don’t want to do that,” she said.

  Seris stopped several feet from her and crouched on the grass.

  “Don’t you want to finally see me do some healing?”

  “I don’t think you should,” she said calmly.

  A faint breeze carried through the trees, and Seris was suddenly aware of an odd silence in the forest.

  “Why not? It doesn’t hurt,” he said gently.

  He saw a brief struggle in her eyes before they clouded over with her usual detachment.

  “Fine,” said Elhan. “Go ahead, c
leric; heal me.”

  She held out her hand, a deep, bloody gash across her palm. Seris lifted his hands hesitantly.

  “Go on,” said Elhan. “It’s not a trick. I’m not going to break your fingers.”

  It hadn’t occurred to Seris until that moment that Elhan might break his fingers just because she found it humorous.

  Seris reached across and touched her hand. He recoiled before he could stop himself, falling backwards onto the grass. Her skin felt like a dead thing, like rotting flesh covered in chalk—something about the texture was viscerally disturbing, setting his teeth on edge like a mouthful of lemon juice and metal shavings.

  “Thanks,” said Elhan. “I feel better already. Can I go to sleep now?”

  “Wait.” Seris shuffled forward on his knees. “I was just… I’m all right now. Let me try again.”

  “It’s not a game. ‘Let’s see how long he can touch her before passing out’.”

  “I’m not going to pass out,” said Seris irritably. “It just caught me off-guard.”

  Seris rolled up his sleeves and reached across.

  “You don’t—” Elhan started to protest.

  Seris wrapped his fingers around her wrist, trying to ignore the unsettling sensation tingling through him, like his bones were aching. The hairs on his arms stood on end, and he took several shallow breaths.

  “I don’t think I’m supposed to see the whites around your eyes like that,” said Elhan.

  Seris tried not to shake as he laid his other hand over the bloody wound. He told himself it was no different from laying hands on the pustule-covered flesh of plague victims, or the bubbling skin of those infected with pox. His eyes began to water and he closed them tightly, concentrating on the sensation of capillaries sealing, muscles knitting together, flesh rejecting contaminants. Seris could feel Eliantora flowing through him, taking the edge off the strange pain that radiated up his arms.