Eve of Destruction

by C. E. Stalbaum

  Eve stopped and jerked away when he put a hand on her wrist. “Zach, I’m not going anywhere. If you want to go back to Lushden, you can. I’m not forcing you to come with me.”

  Zach pulled his eyes away from the second suspicious man and looked down at the girl he’d known since they were barely five years old. Other than growing out her mouse-brown hair and developing a few more curves, Eve hadn’t changed much in the two years they’d been apart, certainly not as much as he had. The legendary DeShane stubbornness was still there in her amber eyes and stiff posture, and as always it was coupled with the vaguely elitist attitude all the magi caste seemed to wear like a cloak. He hadn’t noticed it back when they were growing up together with her magi parents, but after a couple years surrounded by other torbos like himself—men and women without the wealth or privilege to attend one of the universities—it was painfully obvious. Just as obvious as the fact she wasn’t going to believe anything was wrong here until it was too late.

  “I think we should head back to the station,” he told her. “They’ll have food on the train. I’ll even buy it for you.”

  She grunted and put her hands on her hips. “Zach, you don’t have any money. And I haven’t eaten since breakfast. I’m famish—”

  Her voice cut off when she glanced back over to the diner. The second suspicious man had gotten up from his bench and was lurking in front of the door holding his newspaper.

  Smiling directly at them.

  “Come on,” he said, grabbing her shoulder and spinning her around. They only managed two steps before he noticed that the first suspicious man had also moved. He was standing in the middle of the sidewalk behind them, cutting off their obvious escape back towards the station. And he, too, was staring right at them.

  “What do they want?” Eve asked, her voice suddenly trembling.

  “I don’t know, but I’d rather not find out.” One of the first things Zach had learned in the service was to always be aware of his surroundings, and it was a habit he still carried with him. Other than the sidewalk itself, their only other clear exit was an alleyway about twenty feet in front of them, but that was probably exactly where the Dusties wanted them to go. He had no interest in getting backed into a dark corner. No, their best bet was to stay out in the open near as many other people as possible. And hope that the Dusties weren’t willing to just shoot them anyway.

  “This way,” he said, nudging her towards the opposite side of the street. In a larger city like Selerius, running out into the middle of the road would have been nearly as suicidal as charging a group of Dusties, but here in Radbury traffic was light enough that they could easily maneuver through the carriages and only draw a few annoyed glares as a result. The two men didn’t follow, but the moment Zach and Eve reached the other sidewalk it was obvious why: there were three more men waiting there in an adjacent alleyway, all with pistols hanging from their hips.

  “They’re herding us,” Zach said hoarsely. “They don’t want a confrontation out in the open streets.”

  He expected Eve to grab his hand and squeeze or maybe even wrap her arms around him, but she didn’t do either. Instead she just stared at them, her face twisting in anger.

  “Maybe I do,” she whispered.

  Zach glanced down at her again. The fear in her eyes had transformed into a cold, smoldering rage. He had no idea what spells Eve might have learned in her first year at the academy, but he was positive she didn’t know one to get them out of this. He’d fought with a few magi overseas and he’d seen what they could do, but those men and women had also been soldiers. Eve was not. And even if she had been—even if Zach had half his regiment here with them—he wasn’t about to start a firefight in the middle of town. They needed another option, and they needed it quickly.

  He swept his eyes around the nearby area, desperately searching for inspiration. There had to be something here he could use to create a distraction…

  And there, about thirty feet away, he found it. He grabbed roughly onto her arm and yanked her along with him. Up ahead was a fruit stand, and standing next to it was a wealthy-looking man inspecting a pair of fresh melons. Behind him was his horse.

  “Be ready to run,” he warned her as they drew close, casually reaching into his jacket and sliding his pistol from its holster. “Just follow me.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked frantically as she glanced back over her shoulder. The trio of Dusties had moved out from their alleyway and started to follow them.

  Zach didn’t answer. Instead he walked right up behind the fruit stand, lifted the bottom flap of his jacket, and pulled the trigger.

  The shot didn’t hit anything besides the wood, but then, it didn’t need to. The horse immediately reared back in terror at the sound, its front legs smashing into the fruit stand and scattering an entire rack of melons across the sidewalk.The owner yelped in shock and tried desperately to get the beast under control, and all around them people started running around and screaming in panic.

  Zach dragged Eve through the chaos, trying his best to make it look like they were running away from the gunshot rather than the source of it. Glancing back over his shoulder, Zach caught a glimpse of the Dusties trying to push their way forward, and one of them, just like he’d hoped, had drawn his pistol. It instantly made him the target of the crowd’s ire, and soon everyone in Radbury was staring and yelling at the group of thugs. Eventually the people might figure out what really happened, but Zach didn’t intend on giving them the chance.

  They dashed past the chaos and ducked beneath another nearby merchant stall, then turned and slipped behind a carriage moving along a cross-wise street. He let it shield them from view for a solid ten seconds before pulling Eve over to another alleyway and darting inside it.

  “It should confuse them long enough for us to get back to the station,” he told her. “But we need to hurry.”

  Without waiting for a reply he took off again, dragging her around the nearest corner—and then froze in shock. Standing there in front of them was a tall, balding man with an expensive suit and soft brown eyes. It was a face Zach hadn’t seen for over two years, and the last one he ever expected to see here.

  It was the face of an old friend.

  “Blessed Kirshal!” Eve gasped. “Mr. Maltus?”

  “Evelyn; Zachary,” the man said with a wide smile. “I thought I recognized the two of you running across the street. What in Edeh’s name are you doing here?”

  Zach tried to respond but nothing came out. Of all the things he’d possibly expected to see in this alleyway, the face of the DeShane family’s longtime neighbor was near the bottom of the list. Neither he nor Eve had seen Maltus since he’d taken the magister position at Selerius University and moved away a few years ago. So why was he here now? What in the void was going on?

  “We were being followed,” Eve said, recovering first.

  “Followed?” Maltus asked curiously. He glanced past them down the alleyway. “I didn’t see anyone chasing you back on the street, and there’s no one else here.”

  Zach’s mind finally thawed and he swept his eyes around the area. He didn’t see or hear anyone. He stepped just past Maltus to peer around the corner back out to the street. The ruckus by the fruit stand was still going strong, but the Dusties themselves had vanished. For now.

  “I guess they gave up,” he said softly.

  “Goddess, it’s good to see you,” Eve breathed as she leapt into Maltus’s arms.

  He chuckled softly and held her close. “I’m on my way to Lushden. I was hoping to see both of you while I was there, but I never thought to find you in Radbury. Where are you going? Back to school already?”

  “No,” Eve murmured as she looked over at Zach. “We’re headed west.”

  “West?” Maltus asked. “Why in the world would you be heading out there?”

  “It…” she trailed off and sighed. “It will take a while to explain.”

  Maltus glanced between them, his e
yebrows raised. “All right. Why don’t we go and grab something to eat? I know a good place on the other side of the tracks, and my train won’t be here for a few minutes yet.”

  Eve smiled. “I’d like that very much.”

  ***

  They sat down in a cozy little diner on the opposite side of the station, and Eve told Maltus everything. Just seeing his face again had lifted an invisible weight from her shoulders, and for a few minutes it was almost like she was suddenly back at home having dinner with her family again.

  But she wasn’t, and she never would be again. And instead of seeing the face of the man who had all but replaced her long-dead father, she saw everything that she’d lost and could never get back.

  “I’m so sorry, Evelyn,” Maltus apologized for the third time since they’d sat down. “I wish I’d been there for her. I wish…”

  “I know,” Eve murmured. She squeezed Zach’s hand beneath the table. She wasn’t going to lose control. Not here, not now. Not again.

  “I wish I could have been there for the funeral,” Maltus said. “I was hoping I’d at least get the chance to see the two of you. Can you tell me why you’re leaving? I’m sure I don’t have to remind you of how dangerous it is out west for people like us.”

  Eve licked nervously at her lips. She wondered if this would sound as silly aloud as it did in her head. “We’re following a lead.”

  “A lead?” he asked curiously.

  “The killer—or killers—barely touched anything in the house,” she explained. “You know how much valuable stuff is lying around inside, and they didn’t bother with it. The police keep insisting it was a random shooting with no motive, but I didn’t believe that for a minute. I assumed it was another Dusty attack on the magi. You hear about them all the time in the papers now.”

  “But you don’t believe that anymore.”

  “No,” she said. “There was one thing missing in the house. Someone busted into her room and stole one of mom’s books.”

  Maltus paused mid-sip and then gradually set the glass back down on the table. “Do you know which one?”

  “Not specifically,” Eve replied, sharing another quick but meaningful glance with Zach. He’d caught the curious reaction too. “She had a special locked shelf in her room full of books she forbade me to read. She said they were spellbooks that I wasn’t allowed to touch until I graduated and took the Oath Rituals. When I was organizing things after the funeral, I noticed one of them was missing. One of the smaller ones, too, which I found odd.”

  “And you’re sure it was there before? That she hadn’t moved it herself?”

  “It had been awhile since I’d actually gotten a look inside the shelf, but the lock was broken. Mom certainly didn’t do that.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you know what book it was?” Zach asked him. “Or why anyone would want it?”

  Maltus tapped idly at the handle of his cup, and the lines on his face noticeably tightened. “I might. If I had to guess, I would assume it was one of her journals.”

  “Journals?” Eve asked. “I didn’t know mom kept a journal.”

  “She didn’t—at least, not of the conventional sort.”

  Zach cocked his head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Maltus sighed and closed his eyes, and when they opened again the tension in his face was gone. “You remember those dreams your mother used to have when you were younger?”

  “Of course,” Eve said. “I remember she used to wake up screaming in the middle of the night sometimes. Then they just…stopped.”

  “I’m not sure they ever stopped completely,” Maltus murmured. “But she kept a written record of all of them. That’s what was in her journals.”

  “Why would anyone want a journal of her dreams?” Eve asked. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Because not everyone was convinced they were simple dreams,” Maltus told her. “Some of our colleagues believed they were much more than that.”

  Zach made a face. “Huh?”

  Maltus glanced out the window towards the train station. “It’s a long story and I don’t have a great deal of time, but the bottom line is that your mother’s dreams had a way of…well, coming true. Not all of them, mind you, but enough to raise a few eyebrows.”

  “You mean premonitions or something?” Zach asked skeptically.

  “In a sense, yes.”

  “She told me that happened a few times, but very rarely,” Eve said distantly as she searched her memory. “She dismissed it as coincidence. My instructors at Rorendal have told me over and over again that there’s no such thing as premonitions, no matter what village folklore likes to say about magic. The Fane is about the manipulation of matter and energy, not conjuring up hallucinations.”

  “I’ve told my own students the same thing many times,” Maltus said with a faint smile. “Not all of them believe it.”

  “Wait a second,” Zach interrupted. “So you’re saying someone killed Mrs. DeShane and stole her journal because what, they think it can predict the future?”

  “I’m saying that’s a distinct possibility.”

  “That’s crazy,” Zach muttered. “Who would believe something like that?”

  “There are many things about the Fane we don’t fully understand,” Maltus said. “And there are certain circles of magi, particularly within the Edehan church, who believe that the Goddess takes a more…active role in our lives than many of us give her credit for. Some have gone so far as to suggest that your mother might have been blessed.”

  “Blessed?” Eve breathed, shaking her head in confusion.

  “I’m not sure how much you remember from your Worship Day lessons when you were a child, but there’s the old legend about the Varishal.”

  “The Prophetess of Edeh,” Eve said with a nod, “a mage chosen by the Goddess as her messenger when the Fane was in great danger.”

  “That’s the one,” Maltus confirmed. “Some of the more devout members of the church believed your mother’s dreams might have been more than coincidence.”

  Eve blinked. “They thought she was the Prophetess? I never heard about that.”

  “It wasn’t something your mother advertised, and there was never consensus among the clergy about it. But suffice to say, there were a number of people both in and out of the church who thought your mother might have the divine gift of foresight.”

  “And you think one of them killed her for it,” Zach said softly.

  Maltus nodded gravely. “Yes.”

  Eve shook her head, her mind racing. She’d never given much credence to the legends about the Varishal. It always seemed so mystical, even compared to all the other religious stuff. She’d been taught to touch the Fane when she was a child, and its presence had always been quite real to her. But everything else had always been so intangible it was hard to wrap her head around it.

  “So you’re saying it wasn’t the Dusties at all, then?” she asked after a moment.

  “I don’t know that for certain,” Maltus said. “It’s entirely possible they heard rumors about her gift and realized how powerful it could be to their cause. Their gangs may be filled with simpletons and fools, but their leadership is not.”

  “Leadership,” Zach rasped. “You mean like Simon Chaval?”

  “Like I said, I don’t know anything for certain, but Chaval is undoubtedly a clever man. He’s also in the midst of a presidential election that many consider the most important one of our lifetime. If he suspected your mother’s journal could help him…”

  “Goddess have mercy,” Eve breathed, her fists clenching in anger beneath the table. Chaval was the consummate pariah at the university and the target of almost every mage’s ire. It was his company, Steamworks, that had been building the poisonous factories all across the country. It was his Dusty followers who’d been murdering magi. He’d started a culture war that was tearing Arkadia apart…and her mother might have been another casualty.

  Zach
squeezed her hands beneath the table again. “Who else could it be?” he asked. “You said there were others who knew about the journal.”

  “Unfortunately, the list is larger than I’d like,” Maltus said. “Aside from our college friends at Valmeri, there are a few magisters in the Enclave who knew about her dreams. They kept a close eye on her because of that power, in fact.”

  Eve threw him a dark look, her momentary rage at the Dusties forgotten. “What does that mean?”

  “It means they’re probably the ones who did it,” Zach grumbled. “Forget Chaval—the Enclave is just as bad. Maybe even worse.”

  Maltus shook his head. “No. I’m sure you’ve heard many rumors and exaggerations, but the Enclave isn’t what you think. They watch over the magi to make sure they don’t abuse their power. The Magister’s Council would have never harmed Tara.”

  Zach snorted, not bothering to hide his contempt. “Some of the guys in my unit used to go on and on about them, saying they were some kind of world shadow government ordering political assassinations, controlling global trade, you name it.” He shrugged. “I always wondered how much of that was true.”

  “Sadly, facts rarely get in the way of public perception,” Maltus replied coolly. “Don’t get me wrong—the Enclave has its problems, but they don’t kill fellow magi for no reason.”

  Eve swallowed and tried to ignore the knot twisting in her stomach. The Dusties, the Enclave…what in Edeh’s name had her mother gotten into? What had they gotten into?

  “Who else?” Zach pressed. “You implied that your friends from Valmeri knew about these dreams.”

  “Yes, though I have a hard time imagining any of them doing something like this. Most of us haven’t even seen each other for at least twenty years.”

  “What about Gregori Danev?”

  Maltus froze. “Where did you hear that name?”