“What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said the Khevassar, waving it away. “Once a month is a good start, but there will be times in between when children will need testing. I’m hoping there’s a way to contact a Seeker during that time.”
Fray wondered if anything slipped past the Old Man. “Yes, there is.”
“Good. That’s all I need to know.”
They continued walking for a while, each caught up in their own thoughts, until they stopped outside a nice-looking building. It was in a much better part of the city than Fray was used to. The Khevassar handed him a key and gestured at the door.
“Third floor, last door on the left.”
“What is it?” asked Fray.
“Your new home. We had your belongings moved here.”
Fray stared around at the nearby streets, noting the shops and faces that would soon become familiar and part of his everyday routine.
“Your father would be proud of you.”
“What makes you say that?” asked Fray.
This time the Khevassar’s smile reached his eyes. “Because I know what kind of man he was. Because you were willing to sacrifice your life for this city and the people. And because you achieved something that no one else could. I’m proud of you, son.”
Fray didn’t know what to say. He tried to reply a couple of times but couldn’t find the words.
The Old Man gripped his shoulder and walked away before Fray could thank him.
Fray never slept well the first night in any new bed so he was barely asleep when he heard someone else breathing in the dark. He lit a candle and sat up in bed. Even before he saw the golden mask he’d known who it was. Just at the edge of his perception was a faint pulse, a second heartbeat that would become much louder if he focused on it.
“Much nicer,” murmured Eloise, gesturing at his new room. “I came to say goodbye.”
“Where are you going?”
“Home. To the Red Tower. There’s much I need to do.”
“Have you heard about the Queen’s announcement?” asked Fray.
“I did. My people are in place to test every child put forward. The more we find and have a chance to teach, the safer things will become in the future.”
Fray’s thoughts turned to the war and how few Battlemages had come forward to fight. He thought about his father and then himself, a very thin line against the darkness.
“Do you have a library at the Red Tower? Journals or histories of previous Battlemages?” asked Fray.
“We do. Why do you ask?”
“Five years ago my father fought a Flesh Mage. Three years before that, there was a woman, another Flesh Mage. She was intent on infiltrating the aristocracy in the city. Three Flesh Mages in less than a dozen years. Before that there’s no record of any in Perizzi, according to the journals in Unity Hall. Perhaps there’s something in your library?”
“Their Talent,” said Eloise with a sour twist of her mouth. “It’s not something that’s ever been taught at the Red Tower. It’s dangerous, uncommon and complex. Mastering it would take years of study.”
“Then there’s someone else out there.”
The oppressive silence that followed weighed heavily on them both.
“I will look into it,” promised Eloise.
“I did have one question you might be able to answer. Why here? Why did all of them come to this city?”
Eloise was silent and so still that for a minute Fray thought she’d died. It was difficult to make out the rise and fall of her chest under her bulky clothing and long robe. He moved the candle a little closer and saw her eyes. They were studying him and Fray had a sense that he was being weighed. Finally she reached a decision and gave him a sharp nod towards the candle, which he pulled back.
“You have a right to know. It’s the reason I came to this city to establish Seekers ahead of any other place in the west.” Her voice echoed around the room and the chill creeping up Fray’s spine had nothing to do with the temperature outside. “The barrier, the skin between here and there, is thin around Perizzi. That’s why the darkness is drawn to this place.”
“What can we do?”
Eloise shrugged. “Stand watch and pray that we’re ready the next time it happens. There may be more we can do, but if so I’ve not found anything yet. I won’t stop looking though.”
Eloise stood up and moved towards the bedroom door.
“I wanted to ask you something else,” he said. Eloise paused with her back towards him. Suddenly he wasn’t sure how to ask. He wanted to know but was also afraid of the answer. “Since waking up I’ve not been able to use my magic. Every time I try I have a searing pain in my head.”
Eloise pulled up a chair and sat down beside the bed. “When I came into the room, did you feel anything?”
“A pulse. An echo of your magic.”
“Then there’s hope. Give it time. I’m confident you’ll heal, but if something changes send word through one of the Seekers.”
“Who are they?” asked Fray, relief washing through him. To be without his magic after only just beginning to embrace his inheritance would have been a heavy blow. It wouldn’t have been the end of his career as a Guardian, and in some ways it would have made things easier, but it would have felt like a betrayal.
“They’re people like you, young and old,” said Eloise. “Those who’ve managed to hide or control their ability so they can live normally without alarming others. Some of them have so little strength they can barely light a candle, but they’re all sensitive to magic.”
“Are they all volunteers?”
“Of course. In the past a Seeker would roam from city to city, stopping off at most places perhaps once a year to test the children. The old method was flawed. Accidents still happened and children died.” The bitterness in her voice was apparent. “People became afraid of magic because all they’d seen was the destruction it brought. I made the offer and each person chose to become a Seeker. None of them want to see any more accidents. They shouldn’t have to hide who they are. It may be too late for them, but it’s not too late for others.”
“And what about those who make it to the Red Tower? What happens to them?” asked Fray, still suspicious of her motives.
“We train them long enough until they have control of their power. After that they’re given a choice. They can continue with their studies or they can return home. All we ask is that if they do leave early, they do a small favour for the Red Tower.”
“You ask them to become Seekers,” said Fray.
Fray saw the mask shift and sensed Eloise’s smile. “I’ve recruited eleven people in this city. Butchers, nobles, weavers, sailors, barmaids and priests. And now I’m asking you.”
Eloise set a heavy cloth bundle down on the bed beside him. Fray unfolded the cloth to find a black robe, gloves and a gold mask.
“Will you help others? Will you become a Seeker for the Red Tower?”
Fray stared at the mask for a long time. He thought about what the Khevassar had said about children being murdered because people were afraid. He thought about his childhood and his father teaching him to hide his ability. Fray had hoped that if he earned people’s trust they might accept him. Although Eloise had said he was naïve and foolish, he still hoped such a day would come. But until then children in his city were dying and he could stop it.
Fray picked up the mask.
CHAPTER 50
In Perizzi an old sailor and a grizzled warrior watched as the woman in the gold mask mounted up and rode away. No one on the street saw anything unusual but the two veterans could see the truth. They smiled at each other and carried on down the road to the dockside tavern. The warrior bought them some drinks and they sat at a table outside, watching the water. There was nothing remarkable about them and no one paid them any attention.
“Skinwalking is a very rare Talent,” said Vargus. “It’s not something that can be easily taught.”
“Three Fles
h Mages in so few years is very unusual,” agreed Nethun, slurping his ale. “I thought it was the Lantern boy at first, interfering like he did when he dragged half the world into a damned war.”
Vargus raised an eyebrow. “You knew that was him?”
Nethun chuckled. “You don’t get to be my age without knowing what’s going on. I take it you’ve dealt with him?”
“He’s in the Void for now. It’s up to his followers if he comes back or not.”
Nethun grunted. “I recently heard a story from a sailor. A few years ago he remembers seeing the Warlock on board his ship. He travelled all over, up north to Zecorria and elsewhere.”
“Really?” said Vargus.
“Apparently the Warlock learned many things on his travels, like dreamwalking. Isn’t that how he killed King Matthias?”
“Yes, it was.”
“The Warlock also sailed south, to the furthest corners of Shael. He spent years down there in fact.”
“Is that so,” said Vargus, taking a long drink.
“In fact I’d be willing to bet my gold against your copper that all of the Flesh Mages passed through the same place in Shael at one time.”
Vargus leaned across the table and lowered his voice. “Do you know who’s down there?”
“No. I’ve sent a few people to investigate but none have returned.”
Vargus sat back and they drank in silence for a while, watching the hustle and bustle of the docks. Nethun turned his eyes towards the sea and smiled, like a parent watching his children at play.
“That information could prove very useful if it found its way into the right hands,” said Vargus.
“Like a woman in a gold mask,” said Nethun.
“I’ll see to it.”
The old sailor sniffed the air and drained his mug. “I have to go, the tide is changing. Let me know if you hear anything about Shael.”
“I think when it happens, we’ll all know about it,” said Vargus.
Nethun gripped Vargus’s hand and then hurried away towards a ship. Nethun was right, the tide was changing, and a storm was coming.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As ever, many people helped to make this book a reality. First and foremost, Juliet Mushens, for seeing the potential in my writing and pulling me off the slushpile in the first place. Sarah Manning, for her hard work on my behalf and enthusiasm for this story. The whole team at Orbit, who helped me wrestle with the text and beat it into shape. Also all of Team Mushens for being excellent and supportive people.
Lastly I’d like to thank you, the reader. If you’ve come this far then you’ve made it to the end of the book. Reading a novel by a new author is always risky, so I hope you enjoyed the story and will come back for more adventures in the future.
Look out for Book Three in the Age of Darkness series
Chaosmage
Coming in late 2016!
extras
meet the author
Photo Credit: Hannah Webster
STEPHEN ARYAN was born in 1977 and was raised by the sea in northeast England. After graduating from Loughborough University, he started working in marketing, and for some reason he hasn’t stopped. A keen podcaster, lapsed gamer and budding archer, when not extolling the virtues of Babylon 5, he can be found drinking real ale and reading comics.
He lives in a village in Yorkshire with his partner and two cats. You can find him on Twitter at @SteveAryan or visit his website at www.stephenaryan.com.
introducing
If you enjoyed
BLOODMAGE,
look out for
A CROWN FOR COLD SILVER
by Alex Marshall
“It was all going so nicely, right up until the massacre.”
Twenty years ago, feared general Cobalt Zosia led her five villainous captains and mercenary army into battle, wrestling monsters and toppling an empire. When there were no more titles to win and no more worlds to conquer, she retired and gave up her legend to history.
Now the peace she carved for herself has been shattered by the unprovoked slaughter of her village. Seeking bloody vengeance, Zosia heads for battle once more, but to find justice she must confront grudge-bearing enemies, once-loyal allies, and an unknown army that marches under a familiar banner.
FIVE VILLAINS. ONE LEGENDARY GENERAL. A FINAL QUEST FOR VENGEANCE.
CHAPTER 1
It was all going so nicely, right up until the massacre.
Sir Hjortt’s cavalry of two hundred spears fanned out through the small village, taking up positions between half-timbered houses in the uneven lanes that only the most charitable of surveyors would refer to as “roads.” The warhorses slowed and then stopped in a decent approximation of unison, their riders sitting as stiff and straight in their saddles as the lances they braced against their stirrups. It was an unseasonably warm afternoon in the autumn, and after their long approach up the steep valley, soldier and steed alike dripped sweat, yet not a one of them removed their brass skullcap. Weapons, armor, and tack glowing in the fierce alpine sunlight, the faded crimson of their cloaks covering up the inevitable stains, the cavalry appeared to have ridden straight out of a tale, or galloped down off one of the tapestries in the mayor’s house.
So they must have seemed to the villagers who peeked through their shutters, anyway. To their colonel, Sir Hjortt, they looked like hired killers on horseback barely possessed of sense to do as they were told most of the time. Had the knight been able to train wardogs to ride he should have preferred them to the Fifteenth Cavalry, given the amount of faith he placed in this lot. Not much, in other words, not very much at all.
He didn’t care for dogs, either, but a dog you could trust, even if it was only to lick his balls.
The hamlet sprawled across the last stretch of grassy meadow before the collision of two steep, bald-peaked mountains. Murky forest edged in on all sides, like a snare the wilderness had set for the unwary traveler. A typical mountain town here in the Kutumban range, then, with only a low reinforced stone wall to keep out the wolves and what piddling avalanches the encircling slopes must bowl down at the settlement when the snows melted.
Sir Hjortt had led his troops straight through the open gate in the wall and up the main track to the largest house in the village… which wasn’t saying a whole lot for the building. Fenced in by shedding rosebushes and standing a scant two and a half stories tall, its windowless redbrick face was broken into a grid by the black timbers that supported it. The mossy thatched roof rose up into a witch’s hat, and set squarely in the center like a mouth were a great pair of doors tall and wide enough for two riders to pass through abreast without removing their helmets. As he reached the break in the hedge at the front of the house, Sir Hjortt saw that one of these oaken doors was ajar, but just as he noticed this detail the door eased shut.
Sir Hjortt smiled to himself, and, reining his horse in front of the rosebushes, called out in his deepest baritone, “I am Sir Efrain Hjortt of Azgaroth, Fifteenth Colonel of the Crimson Empire, come to counsel with the mayor’s wife. I have met your lord mayor upon the road, and while he reposes at my camp—”
Someone behind him snickered at that, but when Sir Hjortt turned in his saddle he could not locate which of his troops was the culprit. It might have even come from one of his two personal Chainite guards, who had stopped their horses at the border of the thorny hedge. He gave both his guards and the riders nearest them the sort of withering scowl his father was overly fond of doling out. This was no laughing matter, as should have been perfectly obvious from the way Sir Hjortt had dealt with the hillbilly mayor of this shitburg.
“Ahem.” Sir Hjortt turned back to the building and tried again. “Whilst your lord mayor reposes at my camp, I bring tidings of great import. I must speak with the mayor’s wife at once.”
Anything? Nothing. The whole town was silently, fearfully watching him from hiding, he could feel it in his aching thighs, but not a one braved the daylight either to confront or assist him. Peasant
s—what a sorry lot they were.
“I say again!” Sir Hjortt called, goading his stallion into the mayor’s yard and advancing on the double doors. “As a colonel of the Crimson Empire and a knight of Azgaroth, I shall be welcomed by the family of your mayor, or—”
Both sets of doors burst open, and a wave of hulking, shaggy beasts flooded out into the sunlight—they were on top of the Azgarothian before he could wheel away or draw his sword. He heard muted bells, obviously to signal that the ambush was under way, and the hungry grunting of the pack, and—
The cattle milled about him, snuffling his horse with their broad, slimy noses, but now that they had escaped the confines of the building they betrayed no intention toward further excitement.
“Very sorry, sir,” came a hillfolk-accented voice from somewhere nearby, and then a small, pale hand appeared amid the cattle, rising from between the bovine waves like the last, desperate attempt of a drowning man to catch a piece of driftwood. Then the hand seized a black coat and a blond boy of perhaps ten or twelve vaulted himself nimbly into sight, landing on the wide back of a mountain cow and twisting the creature around to face Sir Hjortt as effortlessly as the Azgarothian controlled his warhorse. Despite this manifest skill and agility at play before him, the knight remained unimpressed.
“The mayor’s wife,” said Sir Hjortt. “I am to meet with her. Now. Is she in?”
“I expect so,” said the boy, glancing over his shoulder—checking the position of the sun against the lee of the mountains towering over the village, no doubt. “Sorry again ’bout my cows. They’re feisty, sir; had to bring ’em down early on account of a horned wolf being seen a few vales over. And I, uh, didn’t have the barn door locked as I should have.”
“Spying on us, eh?” said Sir Hjortt. The boy grinned. “Perhaps I’ll let it slide this once, if you go and fetch your mistress from inside.”
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