Agents of Artifice p-1

by Ari Marmell

  Yet his exterior belied a still uglier core. Semner was a thug, a leg-breaker, and a murderer-for-hire so vile he gave mercenaries a bad name. In the days when the League of Wojek still enforced the laws across Ravnica, he and his ilk were nothing. Now they were still nothing, but there were a lot more of them.

  Kallist nodded. It was practically the only motion he could make, so tightly bound. "So who wants me dead this time?"

  "I've got an idea." Semner moved to crouch in front of the chair. "How about you shut up and let me ask the questions?"

  Despite the heavy ropes, Kallist couldn't help but smile. "If you were a mage, you could make me."

  Semner's face turned apple red, and Kallist's smile grew wider still. They'd never worked together, but Kallist knew people who had fought or killed alongside the mercenary. Semner, he'd been told, was in awe of the magics many of his partners wielded, and had made more than one failed attempt at learning such things for himself.

  "How about," Semner growled, "I knock your teeth through the back of your throat, and make you shut up that way? Would that work for you?"

  Kallist shut up. His mind, however, was racing like a tempest drake with its tail on fire. Semner was a lot of things, but subtle had never been one of them. Semner's idea of "stealth" was to kill anyone who noticed him. If Kallist was still alive, it meant that Semner wanted something from him-or whoever had hired Semner did. Kallist wasn't sure which notion was more frightening.

  "Yeah, that's what I thought," Semner said, once Kallist had remained silent for a full minute. The thug pulled up a second chair and slumped down, pointing a blade at Kallist's face. He held the melodramatic pose for a moment, then leaned forward and lashed out. Kallist couldn't help but gasp as the dagger severed a splinter of wood from the chair beside his face. "If you're thinking of trying to toss any more of your little phantasms, you'd do well to forget it right now. Or I'll bleed you so badly you can't say the word 'spell,' let alone cast one."

  "This is all very intimidating," Kallist told him. "But I'd really like the chance to wash these pants before the stain sets. So if you could just get to the point…?"

  "Fine." Semner leaned in farther still and jabbed the point of the dagger into the seat of the chair, mere inches from Kallist's crotch. "Simple question, then, Rhoka. Answer it right, maybe you actually walk away from this.

  "Where do I find Jace Beleren?"

  Kallist felt the breath catch in his chest, his fingers clench into fists. Anger washed over him in a wave, and he felt an almost insurmountable temptation to just give Semner exactly what he asked for. Would serve the bastard right…

  But he wasn't certain Liliana would understand.

  So instead he said, "Last time I talked to Beleren, I told him pretty clearly to pick a hell of his choice, and go. So maybe if you start there-"

  Anything else he might have added was lost in the impact of Semner's fist against his face. Kallist choked back a cry as his lips split and one of his teeth turned loose in its socket. The chair teetered a moment before tumbling over backward, sending a second surge of pain through him as his aching skull bounced off the floor. For several long breaths, Kallist could only stare at the ceiling, trying hard to gather his wits.

  Semner rose, placed one foot on the crossbar between the legs of the chair, and shoved downward. The entire room tilted yet again as Kallist found himself flung upright once more-to find Semner's fist waiting to meet his face this time, rather than the other way around. Blood poured from his nose to mesh with that beading up from his lip.

  "What I heard," Semner said, wiping the blood off his hand on Kallist's shirt, "was you and Beleren aren't exactly friends anymore." He began to pace, spinning the blade between his fingers. "So why not save yourself a whole lot of pain and point me in the right direction?"

  Kallist probed the loosened tooth with his tongue, spat a mouthful of blood to the floor, and said nothing.

  "Much as I'd love to spend an evening pounding you into jerky," Semner grumbled, "I'm on a schedule. So we'll do this the easy way. Boys!"

  The front door slammed open, and Kallist practically pulled a muscle twisting around so he might see. Two men and a woman, looking about as disreputable as their leader, pushed through the open doorway, manhandling someone between them.

  Several more thugs-Kallist couldn't get an accurate count-leered from the rainy night beyond. The bag they'd placed over the captive's head did nothing to prevent Kallist from recognizing her; when they pulled it off, revealing Liliana's face, it was almost anticlimactic.

  "You bastards!" he hissed at them. How had a nobody like Semner even managed to take her, anyway?

  She didn't appear wounded, at least. Her hair was plastered to her forehead, her dress to her body. Under other circumstances, it would've been alluring.

  "I'm sorry, Kallist." And damn if she didn't sound like she meant it.

  Semner gestured, and the bravos holding Liliana released her-only so they could make a point of leveling their crossbows at her unprotected back.

  "Now," Semner said, turning back toward his beaten prisoner, "we'll do this exactly one more time.

  "Where is Jace Beleren?"

  CHAPTER THREE

  "Favarial." Kallist was denied even the feeble comfort of glaring at his interrogator, for his attention was fixed on the crossbows aimed at Liliana's back. "I couldn't begin to tell you where in the district, and I can't even promise he's still there, but last we talked, he lived in Favarial."

  Semner nodded slowly and turned to the men in the doorway. "She can go. Kill him."

  Liliana's eyes widened; her lip quivered as though she had something to say, something she couldn't quite voice. Three evil grins formed around and behind her, and three evil bolts shifted their aim to Kallist's chest.

  Kallist felt his heart race and his palms grow clammy. And then, as though doused with a bucket of snow, he cooled. He felt calm, collected. He'd faced worse situations; hell, he'd subjected people to worse situations.

  "Bad, bad idea, Semner," he said, his voice level. "I didn't think even you were that stupid."

  Curiosity warred with anger on the ugliest face in the room, and curiosity beat the stuffing out of it. Semner raised a hand, halting his men even as their fingers began to tighten on their triggers.

  "Meaning what, exactly?"

  "Favarial's an awfully long way away," Kallist told him. "That's several days before you know for certain if I'm lying or not."

  Semner ground his teeth. "Are you?"

  "No." A smile. "As far as you know."

  "Damn it, Rhoka…"

  "And what if he's left?" Kallist plunged on. "Obviously, you found me more easily than you could find him, or we wouldn't be having this lovely heart-to-heart. He could be anywhere." He might not even be on Ravnica anymore. Of course, Semner wouldn't understand that. "We may not talk anymore, but I still know the man a lot better than you do. If I'm lying, or if he's moved on, how do you plan to find him without me?"

  The grinding in Semner's jaw grew to almost tectonic levels. But Kallist had him, and he knew it.

  "All right." The mercenary finally relented. "You get to keep breathing." He gestured toward the chair he himself had occupied a few moments before. "Tie her up. Make sure she's secure."

  "What?" Kallist scowled. "You just told your men to let her go."

  "That was before you pointed out that I was being stupid," Semner smirked. One of the thugs departed to locate more rope; Semner turned toward those remaining. "Errit, you and Rin stay here. Sleep in shifts; I want someone watching them at all times.

  "I may not be a mage," he allowed, with a bitter glance at Kallist, "but I can hire people who are. Once we've reached Favarial, I'll find a messenger who can send you word, let you know if he told us the truth.

  "And if he didn't," Semner added darkly, "your job will be to scar the woman up good."

  Kallist snarled in frustration. He was not, however, the only one present to take issue with that p
lan.

  "Urn, boss?" the one named Errit interjected, his voice uncertain. "You really want us to watch these two? For days? Just two of us?"

  "They'll be tied up."

  "But, uh… Didn't you tell me they were witches? What if they put a hex on Rin, or turn me into a gobber, or something?"

  "Then you'll have a better chance of attracting women!" Semner growled, though his expression had grown uncertain.

  "You'll have to take us with you, Semner," Liliana taunted. "All it takes is the right word, even the right look. There's no way your goons can keep the both of us confined for days."

  "The hell they can't," he snarled back, grinning suddenly. Liliana winked at Kallist, who had to struggle not to laugh out loud.

  "Gag them," Semner ordered his men, "and find something to blindfold them. That should keep them from casting or aiming much of anything. And if not…"

  Slowly he turned to Liliana, looking her lasciviously up and down. She shuddered, her skin crawling as though he'd actually run his hands across her body. Kallist wished desperately for a knife, or even a piece of broken glass.

  "One of them makes even the slightest suspicious move," Semner told Errit. "Cut something personal and irreplaceable off the other one. That should keep 'em in line."

  The door swung open and the other returned, a coil of rope slung over one shoulder. He dripped profusely as he crossed the floor, and the sounds through the open doorway suggested that the steady drizzle had become an honest downpour.

  "Food?" Errit asked Semner as the man with the rope moved to the chair and began uncoiling his burden. "Water?"

  "Eh. We'll only be three or four days. Won't kill them to go without food. Water… Just soak the gags every few hours, let them suck the water out of 'em."

  "And if they have to relieve themselves?" Clearly he was still nervous about the notion of having an unrestrained mage in the room.

  Semner just grinned. "It'll cover the scent of Rhoka's vomit."

  Shoulders straight and head held high, Liliana strode across the room and sat in the chair herself, rather than allowing herself to be manhandled into it. Even as Errit and the woman-Rin, presumably-began wrapping the ropes around her, her eyes locked on Kallist's own. Slowly, deliberately, they drifted down to indicate the ropes, and back up. Ever so slightly, he nodded in turn.

  Without the slightest hint of sound, Liliana's lips began to move.

  In a matter of moments, she was tied as thoroughly as Kallist himself, Semner had offered them another handful of snide and threatening comments, and the house had slowly emptied out. All that remained, now, were two bound prisoners, two nervous captors, and the sound of the ever-increasing rain.

  A little knowledge, or so the saying goes, is a dangerous thing. And that's what Semner, undisciplined and unstudied as he was in the ways of magic, possessed: a little knowledge. If he'd known just a bit more, paid slightly better attention to the mages with whom he'd worked or the few lessons he'd received, he might've known just how quickly simple magics could be worked; might've realized how thoroughly he was being played when Liliana intimated that binding and gagging would prove anything more than an inconvenience.

  The necromancer had rotted the ropes away to sludge before Semner had even departed the house-a fact concealed by Kallist's own spell, a minimal phantasmagoria that made the bindings appear as solid as ever, even shifting and rustling with the captives' movements. And then they waited, the prisoners fidgeting, Errit nervously pacing the room, Rin digging around in the linens for viable gags and blindfolds. She finally settled on a few strips of bed sheet and the sleeves torn off an old tunic.

  Kallist winced as the cloth was shoved in his mouth and draped over his head. Yet even as the room vanished behind off-white linen, he allowed his body to go limp, his mind and his focus to sharpen, as he drew upon the mana of the wells and cisterns beneath the district's roads. Earlier, hungover and all but drowning in adrenaline, he couldn't make the spell work. But now, now he cast his sight out from his head; it felt, if anything, even easier than he'd anticipated. The ragged sheet seemed to draw near and then vanish as he surveyed the room from a spot several inches in front of his face. From there he watched and waited for Liliana to make the first move.

  The sound of the downpour faded, resuming the gentle background rustle of the night before. The shutters over the windows glowed faintly with the first stirrings of a bashful dawn.

  Errit actually uttered a startled squeak when Liliana stood up from her chair, doffed her bonds and removed the makeshift hood and gag with contemptuous ease, offering him her most dazzling, seductive smile.

  And that was more than enough distraction for Kallist to stand up and smash the thug over the back of the head with his chair.

  The sound didn't wake Rin, who had gone to sleep away Errit's first shift. Thanks to the shadowy form that had lurked beneath the bed since the start of Liliana's chant, run its hideous limbs across the sleeping woman, and vanished once more into the aether, nothing would wake Rin ever again.

  "You certainly took your time," Kallist said as he stepped across the bleeding, supine form, dropping his gag on the fellow's face, a cheap and contemptuous shroud. "We've been free for over an hour."

  "I had to be sure Semner wasn't coming back, didn't I?"

  "Ah. Smart thinking."

  "And don't forget it."

  Kallist couldn't help but smile. He stepped beside the woman he loved-even if he'd also felt, over the past evening, that he could learn to hate her-and reached out to embrace her. His heart fell to his toes when she retreated before him, until he remembered the state of his clothes.

  "New pants, I think," he suggested with a rueful grin.

  "I'd surely appreciate it."

  Kallist moved to the bed, stopping long enough to stick a hand through the shutters, collecting a handful of rainwater with which he removed the worst of the blood from his face. "Are you all right?" he asked as he knelt, wincing, to dig through the lower half of the wardrobe. "They didn't hurt you, did they?"

  "Only what you saw, Kallist."

  "I'm glad." He staggered and hopped his way around the room, trying to yank a clean pair of trousers over his legs even as he went about collecting certain vital items. "Who do you think hired Semner? Boricov? The Consortium itself? Or maybe that Kamigawa shaman's also a walker…"

  "Does it matter?" Liliana bent down, wrapping the few remaining strands of solid rope around the splayed limbs of the unconscious thug. "If we sat here listing everyone who might want Jace dead, he'd die of old age before we finished, and save them the trouble."

  "It matters," Kallist said, teetering into the center of the room with an armload of traveling supplies, his scabbarded broadsword protruding from the heap. "It's going to impact how we run." "Run?"

  "If it's just the ratfolk looking for a bit of payback, there's no reason to think you and I are in any further danger. But if the Infinite Consortium's hunting us again, we've got to put at least a few hundred leagues between us and our next home. One of the larger districts, do you think? Glahia, maybe? Not Favarial, for obvious reasons. Or maybe we could-"

  "Kallist," Liliana said softly, laying a gentle hand across his arm, though he had no memory of her crossing the room, "hush."

  He hushed.

  "We can't run," she told him seriously.

  "I've got a pack of supplies and two fairly sturdy feet that say we can, actually. Why-"

  "We have to warn Jace."

  Kallist's armload fell to the floor, the hilt of the sword landing hard enough on his foot that, had he not already put his boots back on, he might well have broken something.

  "Semner must have hit me harder than I thought," he told her.

  "Oh?"

  "I'm hallucinating. I actually imagined I heard you say we should go warn Jace."

  "Well, that's a mighty convenient hallucination, then, since I did say we should go warn Jace. But at least I won't have to repeat myself."

  "Yo
u're insane. There's no way-"

  "Someone's got to, Kallist."

  "Liliana, Jace doesn't want to see us."

  "And we don't want to see him," she agreed.

  "Precisely. Why ruin such a mutually satisfying arrangement?" "Kallist…"

  "He's never forgiven you, Liliana. And he's certainly never going to forgive me."

  "And that, of course, is as good a reason as any to sentence the man to death."

  "He ruined my life!"

  "Because he was trying to save it."

  A long pause, as Kallist glared at her-and then his shoulders drooped, the breath hissing through his teeth as it escaped. "Damn it."

  "Yeah."

  Kallist slid down the wall to sit, arms on knees, beside the window. Liliana crouched next to him, two fingers running idly through his hair.

  "When did we start worrying about the 'right thing?"' he asked hopelessly.

  "I think about the time it started to involve someone who saved your life half a dozen times."

  A final deep sigh deflated Kallist from the waist on up, but finally he nodded. "All right," he said. And again, "All right. Semner's got over an hour's head start. But it's pretty easy to get turned around in the streets and tunnels between here and Favarial. Even if not, if I hurry, I may still get there soon enough to find Jace before he does, assuming the bastard's even still in the district."

  "By which, of course, you mean 'we,"' Liliana corrected, just the slightest coating of frost on her voice.

  "Ah…" Kallist hedged, realizing just how deep was the mire he was about to step in, "no, that's not exactly what I meant."

  "Yes it is. You just haven't had that fact explained to you yet."

  "Liliana," he said, pulling his head from beneath her hand and standing straight once more, "You shouldn't come."

  She rose, smoothly, swiftly, until her feet were inches from the floor, her body surrounded by a flickering aura of black mist, the arcane symbols once more inked across her back and neck. She hovered, higher, until she had to look down to meet Kallist's gaze.