by Mirren Hogan
He hurried on, following the road out of the city. It was no less congested than Dassane had been, at least at first. Men, women, and children, on foot or on carts, with and without various animals hurried both in and out of the city. They must come from outlying farms and towns to do their business. Darai wondered if any were Adina’s family.
Thinking of her gave him a brief stab in his chest that left him a little breathless. Was leaving really the right thing to do? Would he come to regret it?
He stopped in the shade of a wagon to look back the way he’d come. The road had curved upward, so he had a view of the city and its shining lake. He made out the bastion and the guild hall, both looking innocuous at this distance. He knew better on both counts. They were like shabene flowers; they looked pretty, but if you touched one, they’d give you a rash that often led to the loss of fingers and sometimes whole limbs. He’d escaped with all of his, so far. He’d like it to stay that way.
“Hey, you wanna ride?” A voice called down from the wagon beside him.
He looked up to see a grizzled old woman with sparse white hair. He expected her to have no teeth, but when she smiled, he saw a full set, white and even.
“Where are you going, mother?” he asked respectfully.
“Wherever the road goes,” she replied, laughing. “But this road goes to Chaq. I might have family there. I might not.” She shrugged. “You wanna come? I give you a ride, you help out, build fires, catch food, all that. Yes?”
He wasn’t sure she wasn’t touched in the head by one of the lesser gods, but he could always find his own way if she became too tedious.
“All right,” he said finally. “Why not?”
“I got no reason why not. Hop up.”
The horse pulling the wagon looked old but sturdy, and barely twitched an ear when Darai clambered up the side of the wagon and sat beside the woman.
“I’m Hafta.” She held out her hand for him to shake.
“Darai.” Her grip was surprisingly strong and almost hurt until she let go.
“Pleasure. We gonna get along just fine.” She shook the reins and the horse trudged forward, following the north road.
CHAPTER 27
“So, he left.” Tabia led Adina into the classroom and gestured for her to sit. It was a small room, since most of the apprentice sorcerers took small classes; earth channellers with someone of a similar skill, air channellers with another air channeller and so on. Adina would train with one of the few water channellers, once he returned to the hall. Kwame often travelled, seeking other water channellers. He’d be amused to find that one had turned up here at the guild. The thought of the older man, his intense brown eyes and multitude of laugh lines, made her smile briefly.
Adina’s reply brought her back to the present with a start.
“Yes, he’s gone. Can I ask you something?”
Tabia settled in beside Adina and nodded. “Of course. I’ll do the best I can to answer.” She had much to make up for, she wouldn’t start with lies or false promises. “And I have a question for you.” She gestured for Adina to go first.
The young woman cleared her throat. “Are you looking for the magula? Or the—what was it—the well?”
The girl certainly didn’t ask easy questions. Nor were there easy answers.
She nodded. “We’re keeping watch on the few remaining who still need the magic removed from them.” They’d all have been done by now if it wasn’t for Feko’s death. The other sorcerers capable of performing the removal had been escorting children home and wouldn’t arrive back at the hall until later today. The delay was unfortunate, but unavoidable. The skills peculiar to sorcerers were prohibitively restricted at times, preventing others from undertaking a task that should be relatively simple.
“The magula itself seemed almost impossible to search out,” Tabia admitted. “We’ve kept our eyes out for sudden surges of magic, or attacks on people which might be attributed to them, but so far there’s been nothing.”
Adina frowned, but nodded. “And the well? Didn’t Darai say the magula wanted to find the well? What does that mean?”
Tabia recalled Sevele’s alarm at that part of the message. He’d refused to explain himself, but he’d spent a lot of time in the library since then. Perhaps he had only a vague knowledge of this so-called well and was seeking information. The thought was unsettling, especially given Darai’s accusation that they had no idea what they were doing. Perhaps there were more than a few grains of truth to that.
“To be honest, I’m not sure what that means, but I promise you we’re looking, all right?” She regarded Adina until the younger woman nodded.
“Now I know I can’t teach you too much, because I can’t use water to channel, but I can guide you in these first steps.” Tabia smiled, remembering Basel, her first magic teacher, with fondness. “I won’t ask anything more of you than you think you can handle, and of course you can stop immediately if you feel you need to.”
Tabia picked up a jug from the centre of the table and poured a few splashes of water into a shallow bowl.
“Sorcerer?” Adina asked tentatively.
“Please, call me Tabia.”
“Um, Tabia. Does the magic run out?”
Tabia frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Oh.” Adina grinned. “I’m sorry, I mean, is there only a certain amount of magic in the water?”
That was a very good question. Air was abundant, as was earth, as long as the user had a conduit. Water magic, or the ability to use it, was so uncommon Tabia wasn’t even sure what it was about water that held magic. It might be particles of earth or air for all she knew. That would mean that water channellers weren’t really water channellers at all, but a combination of air and earth, who used water as a conduit.
“I guess we can find out,” she replied. Zuleso help her, she really wasn’t proving to Adina that she knew what she was doing, was she? With a smile she hoped was reassuring, she pushed the bowl toward Adina.
“Just dip in your fingertips and try to do what you did earlier.”
She could see Adina’s hand tremble as it moved, but it could have been nerves or excitement. A combination of both were in Adina’s eyes.
The surface of the water rippled slightly as her fingers touched it. Several heartbeats later, the telltale crimson glow of magic lit the young woman’s skin and traveled up and around her arm.
“All right.” Tabia pulled a small rock out of her pocket and placed it in front of her. “Try to lift this. Don’t worry if it doesn’t happen the first time. It takes practice. Oh! There you go!”
The rock rose steadily off the table, turned slowly, and then shot off across the room to land with a clatter on the floor. Both women laughed, and Adina’s magic winked out.
“And that’s why we start with rocks, and not items of value. Or people.” Tabia smiled at the memory of holding her former lover up in the air, teasing her about something. She couldn’t even remember what now.
She sighed. She still missed Satsuko very much. Her lover had been the voice of reason in challenging situations, the calm bay in the centre of a tumultuous storm. Not that Tabia didn’t adore Isobel, but Satsuko had been a magic-user and understood her in ways Isobel never could.
She drew in a steadying breath and focused on Adina.
“Let’s try that again.” She drew her own magic and sent it over to pick up the rock. It wound around like a coil of wire and raised it up off the floor. Some sorcerers would frown at such a mundane task being done with magic, but Tabia was unconcerned. What was magic for if not for saving time? She twirled the rock around in the air, showing off a little, while Adina clapped. It was a silly parlour-trick, but magic didn’t always need to be serious.
She held out her hand and the rock hovered above it, held up by a whisker of magic. She was about to release it and let it drop when a shadow slid across the room, lunging at her tendril of magic. Instinctively she flinched and let the rock go. It slid off the side
of her hand and fell unnoticed to the floor.
Tabia froze.
The thing looked to have been made of midnight, shaped approximately like a person. Wisps of darkness might have been arms and legs. The vague form of a head writhed on a neck which didn’t appear strong enough to support it. The sun shining in through the window seemed to bounce off the shadow, unable to penetrate it.
Where a mouth might have been, an even deeper darkness open and fastened onto the end of the tendril on Tabia’s palm. Like a child eating a noodle, it began to suck, pulling the magic into itself hungrily.
For several moments Tabia remained frozen, drawing magic, only to have it sucked away. Adina’s scream broke her out of it, and she released the magic in a rush, blinking desperately, trying to orient herself. She wasn’t fast enough.
The shadow advanced on her, it’s its mouth gaping, hot breath panting, stinking of something she couldn’t identify. It was disturbingly familiar, but she had no time to think about it. She rose from her seat and put herself between the thing and Adina.
“What do you want?” she heard her own voice ask.
“Magic,” the thing hissed. It was less like words and more like the sound of water hitting hot coals, but the meaning was clear enough.
Tabia knew what this was. She was face to face with one of the magula, the thing which had attacked Darai and taken his excess magic. A poor soul who hadn’t been found in time to save them it.
“Why?” She was stalling, hoping Adina would run, but she heard the young woman breathing anxiously behind her.
“I need it.” The magula drew out each word, as though speech had become alien to it. “Please!”
“No.” Tabia shook her head slowly. “I can help you some other way.”
“No, draw!” it insisted. It lunged toward her and grabbed her arms.
She tried to pull back, feeling the magula sucking any residual magic from her skin and trying desperately to use her as a conduit. Zuleso, this was how Benassi had died. She hadn’t liked the man, but she wouldn’t wish this on anyone.
Desperately trying to hold back her rising terror, she tugged and writhed, but the magula held her tight. It was trying to pull magic from the air. She wasn’t sure if she was resisting, or the magic was. Either way, she felt the magula’s frustration.
“Draw!” It was all but crying now.
With a wrench, she felt magic fling into her and immediately be sucked away as the magula fed like a child at a teat. Its mouth opened and closed, lips sucking at the air, shadowy fingers lessening their grip slightly.
It was enough for her to draw a huge dose of magic and fling it at the magula. It released her and flew backward as though blown by a gust of wind.
Tabia staggered toward the door, where a terrified-looking Adina caught her before she fell.
“Is that what I think it is?” She gaped at it.
“Yes.” Tabia turned. The magula looked sated, floating, or perhaps crouching, just above the floor.
“Listen to me,” it hissed. “It’s not enough. The magula seek the well. The magula must bathe in the well.”
“What is the well?” Tabia asked, letting Adina take part of her weight for a moment. Maybe now she’d get some answers.
The magula appeared to hesitate. “You must find the well.”
Tabia shook her head. “I don’t know what the well is.”
“The well,” it insisted. “The magic comes from the well. The magula must bathe there.”
Tabia blinked. She had never considered where magic came from, other than the earth, air and water. How did it get there? Was there a source? Was that what the well was?
“Is the well the source of magic?” she asked. “Where it comes from?”
“Yes,” the magula seemed to be nodding. “You have to find it, I must find it. The well will make me alive again.”
That made sense. If a little bit of magic sustained the magula, a lot might be enough to cleanse them of the magic of the Outpouring.
“You can’t keep attacking people for magic,” she said.
“The well. Find the well.” The magula didn’t appear to be listening.
“Maybe we can find a way to get you a bit of magic? Enough to keep you alive?” How she’d do that, Tabia wasn’t sure, but there had to be a way.
The magula hesitated. “Maybe.”
It sounded so plaintive that Tabia’s heart went out to it a little. It hadn’t wanted to kill her, it just needed to eat, like all other living things. It was fighting for its survival in a situation not of its making. Like Darai, Adina, and the harvested ones, the magula was a victim of the Outpouring, but one far worse off. She felt a flash of anger at Darai over his petulance. Nothing he’d endured was even close to what the magula was suffering.
She squinted, trying to piece together the cloud of darkness. Was it male or female? It must have been someone once, a loved one of someone now mourning it, a mother, a father, a child.
“Who were you?” she asked softly. “Maybe I can get word to your family . . . ”
The shadow froze for several heartbeats, then seemed to shift before Tabia’s eyes. The darkness retreated from a sad, haunted face.
Tabia’s heart skipped a beat. “Oh Zuleso,” she breathed.
CHAPTER 28
“Are you certain?” Sevele’s dark eyes squinted at her. Tabia knew he only asked for clarification, not because he didn’t believe her.
“Yes. She couldn’t have been more than eleven or twelve. She was so young and so scared,” Tabia replied. “I don’t think she really understood what happened to her.” Her heart wanted to break for the child.
“She’s a killer,” remarked Gowah, a tall, heavy-set man who looked more like he’d be at home fighting in the arena in Kalil than sitting around the assembly table. He was generally taciturn, but when he spoke it was to say something Tabia would consider to be in poor taste.
“Although,” he went on, “it sounds like she’s become Tabia’s newest pet.”
Sevele cleared his throat. “Yes, well, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to help her.”
Gowah looked embarrassed and sat back, his arms crossed over his chest.
Tabia glanced around at the others seated around the table. Most of them seemed to be smirking. A couple gave her looks, as though trying to determine how offended she might be. They’d be disappointed if they thought she’d be rattled. She might not approve of the way Gowah spoke, but she’d heard and seen much worse as a slave.
She turned back to Sevele. “I think it might have been the same girl Darai saw in the Bastion when he first spirit drifted. She must have still had enough of herself to appear human for a time.”
“We don’t know enough about the transformation of a person into a magula,” Sevele said slowly. “Perhaps the process isn’t a swift one, as might have been assumed.”
Tabia shuddered. What must it have been like to feel yourself slowly changing, becoming something else, consumed by so much magic, eaten alive until only a shadow remained?
“There’s another possibility.” Dafil spoke up for the first time. A senior member of the Assembly, Dafil was tall and slender, with a close-cropped white beard and thoughtful eyes. His brow had a deep furrow in the centre, giving him the look of a man who did a great deal of intense thinking. His was a keen intelligence which Tabia admired greatly. Had he not been a sorcerer, he’d have likely been a scholar of great renown. When Dafil spoke, everyone stopped to listen.
“The magula may have slain the child and assumed her identity, albeit it briefly,” he said slowly. “Tabia, you said she only held the form for a few moments?”
Tabia nodded. “That’s right.”
“Therefore, she could not have fooled anyone for long. Perhaps the lad’s encounter took a lesser amount of time than he truly appreciated; long enough for her to pose and lament on her situation. It would explain why she was able to see him in his ethereal form.”
“So, where’s the body?”
Gowah asked.
Dafil turned to him. “Perhaps buried and the king chose not to be forthcoming with the information for reasons which remain his own. He is hardly obliged to tell us his every move. However, the child could have come from anywhere.”
Gowah grunted. “I s’pose.”
“Either way, it seems that we have a child in a great deal of turmoil,” Sevele said.
Gowah snorted.
For once Tabia agreed with his articulate, if not spoken, response. Turmoil was an understatement at best. She knew how it felt to be alone in the world and she’d been several years older than the girl, and not consumed by magic. She must be terrified.
“So, the girl killed Benassi and that staff woman—what was her name—Genari?” This time it was Pakle who spoke. He was a handsome man, only a few years older than Tabia and one of the few who gave her any respect. Perhaps because he was the most junior assemblyman until her appointment. He’d know how it felt to be dismissed.
“The girl, or whatever it was,” Sevele agreed. “Unless there are more?” He turned to Tabia and raised an eyebrow.
She shrugged. “She implied there were more, but unless there were more in the city which the collectors missed, then Zuleso only knows where they might be.”
Ezeji glared at her. As one of the collectors who had retrieved Darai and several others, he had pride in his skill and those of his counterparts. He wouldn’t like the insinuation that they’d been so negligent.
She looked back at him unapologetically as Gowah voiced her next question before she could.
“How’d you miss a girl in Dassane anyway?” he asked, raising his large hands in question. “She was right here in the city.”
“May I remind you of my suggestion that the magula might have killed the girl?” Dafil said.
“What if it didn’t?” Gowah asked. “Maybe the Bastion just kept her locked away.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Pakle said.
“Tabia, was there more?” Sevele asked.
