Spellslinger 6: Crownbreaker

by Sebastien de Castell

  ‘Speak then,’ I said. ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘I showed you the bleak future that awaits our people as our ability to wield the primal forces of magic wanes. We have interbred for the talent for too many generations, and our own numbers are too small to adjust our course. We must …’ Lines appeared at the corners of his eyes as though presaging the pain of his next words. ‘We must bring outsiders into our midst.’

  ‘The Daroman would’ve been good candidates in that endeavour, or the Berabesq for that matter. Too bad you decided to screw all of them.’

  Parental fury played across his features, but he soon regained mastery of himself. ‘I told you, the number of Jan’Tep bloodlines would be insufficient if we were forced to—’

  ‘If the Jan’Tep lost too many mages helping the Daroman empire fight a war against Berabesq. Yeah, I remember. Only you forgot to mention the part where you decided that our people just surviving wasn’t enough.’

  ‘We are a nation of mages, Ke’helios, not servants to barbarians who measure themselves by the number of swords and horses they own, or by which asinine image of God haunts their fevered visions. These are the pursuits of superstitious children, not great civilisations. Would you have us become jesters begging for scraps at their tables for the next three hundred years?’

  ‘We could have been teachers, Father. Bringing the gifts of our ancestors to those who never knew that they too could wield the magic of this continent.’

  ‘Teachers?’ Rage ran scarlet in the skin of his cheeks. ‘To what end? So the barbarians can learn our secrets, take what is ours, only to return to their own people to whom they will always be loyal? To prove that there is nothing special about the Jan’Tep except the exotic metals in the veins of ore beneath our oases?’

  I shook my head, not sure whether to laugh or cry at the tragedy that was my people’s enduring hubris.

  ‘Do not chortle at me, boy! I am your father. I am your king. I am—’

  ‘A trickster,’ I said. ‘A huckster who preys on the very same superstitions you keep mocking.’ I held up my right arm, and the ember band where he’d managed to instil a new sigil over the counter-banding he and my mother had done. ‘How did you do it, Father? How did you discover this new way to bind magic to a human being? That’s how the Berabesq god came to be, isn’t it? The Arcanists have always known the techniques to inscribe spells on flesh, but that wasn’t enough. Miracles are far too complex. They require an entirely different set of physical laws, ones that can only be produced by …’

  My fingers went to the black markings around my left eye. ‘The shadowblack. At the Ebony Abbey, the abbot studied the patterns Grandmother had used to band me in shadow and found the means to repeat the process on others.’

  My father nodded. ‘Seren’tia uncovered the technique. We simply never understood what she’d done – why she had banded you in shadow. Iron, ember, blood, breath, silk, sand – these are single etheric planes from which only a narrow set of possibilities emerge. But shadow? There are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of different sets of physical laws from which to derive new spells, ones so complex as to be akin to—’

  ‘Miracles,’ I said. ‘When Mother snuck into the Berabesq territories to learn the ways of the Arcanists, she figured out how the two techniques could be combined to concoct miracles.’

  ‘That is a zealot’s word. This is merely a new branch of magic, one whose wonders will take decades to fully decode.’

  ‘Maybe, but until that day, they look like miracles to everyone else. So you fed Mother to the Arcanists, had her trick them into thinking they came up with the idea of creating a god for their people to worship. Just like you were the voice in Shujan’s head telling him when and how to activate the spells carved onto his skin.’

  He nodded. ‘The Berabesq have their own problems. A people united only in the belief that God will one day return to them grows tired of waiting. We gave the Arcanists the means to at last rally their nation and destroy the Daroman empire they so despise.’

  ‘Meanwhile you made a deal with the Murmurers in Darome to help them destroy the Berabesq.’ I looked around us, at this poor, sad place whose beauty is so often missed by those other nations who happily tread upon it whenever they wish. ‘You set them both up to wage war here, in the Seven Sands.’

  ‘It was the only way. The two great nations of the continent will do battle and seek to annihilate the other, but they will both fail. Their armies will hurl themselves against each other, and when they are spent, the Jan’Tep will use our magic to defeat those who remain. They will be forced to make peace on our terms, and support us against Gitabria and Zhuban, should there be a need.’

  ‘And all at once, a doomed culture will take dominion over the entire continent.’ I practically spat the words. ‘What made you think any of this would make me like you better, Father?’

  He locked eyes with me a moment, then spread his hands. ‘This.’

  The tattooed bands on his arms glowed now, more powerful than ever as he invoked the sand-shaping spell he’d first shown me in Darome. This time, though, his creation was bigger, more refined, as if a thousand master sculptors were giving form to his vision at the speed of thought.

  Where once he had shown me glimpses of a single city, now the desert all around us became a map of the entire continent, with cities flourishing, new roads spreading out from the centre – from the Jan’Tep territories. It was breathtaking.

  ‘We will not be tyrants,’ Ke’heops said. ‘Once we have the power to ensure our own survival, we will welcome those with the talent for magic from every other nation to join us. Then, over time – when we deem them ready – they will return to their countries, combining their spells with the skills of their people to build better cities and better lives for all.’

  I had to turn to watch in awe as his words were brought to life in the sand, the desert for as far as I could see becoming a miniature version of the world he described.

  ‘What do you see, Ke’helios?’ my father asked.

  ‘I see a golden age.’

  ‘Yes. Yes!’ He reached out to me, beckoning me as a father does his long-lost son. ‘Tell me that Sha’maat was right. Tell me that you finally understand, that we can be a family once again!’

  With two pinches of powder, a barely sparked breath band, and a single word, I blasted my father’s golden age back to a hundred billion grains of sand.

  61

  Two Sides

  My father was unharmed, of course. Only his pretty display of sand magic and self-delusion had been destroyed. A shimmer in the air behind him came and went, and in its place left Shalla. She was trying very hard to appear stern. Disappointed. Disinterested. Hard to do that when you’ve been crying.

  ‘I’m sorry, Shalla,’ I said.

  ‘Sha’maat.’ She walked towards us, feet unsteady on the loose sand, not helped by the ostentatious silver gown and uncomfortable-looking sandals. ‘Shalla was a child’s name, and we can’t afford to be children any more, brother. The stakes are too high.’

  ‘You’ve got that right. That’s why I won’t—’

  She shook her head. ‘No. No more bold declarations. No more frontier philosophy and Argosi tricks. No more wilful disregard of your duty to your country, to your family. I have tried so hard to help you, to guide you back to our family, but at every turn you defy your own people, to prove that we are the villains in this story you tell yourself, and you some kind of cunning hero. But heroes don’t betray their families, brother.’

  There was a cold cruelty to her words that felt more characteristic of our father, as though she were trying to show him that she’d chosen once and for all to be his daughter rather than my sister.

  ‘You keep using that word,’ I said, my mind already setting itself to the myriad tricks I already knew wouldn’t be enough to get me out of this situation. ‘I’m not sure it means what you think it does.’

  An eyebrow arched. ‘What word?’

>   ‘Family.’

  It was a low blow, so I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised at the hurt in her expression, nor the sudden, violent sparking of the iron band around our father’s forearm. An invisible hand grabbed my jaw, preventing me from speaking.

  ‘Above all else,’ Ke’heops said, ‘no more of your clever tongue.’

  I felt myself being pulled up until my feet lost hold of the ground.

  ‘The future of the Jan’Tep is not a matter for debate,’ he said.

  Something about that bothered me – bothered me even more than all his pompous elocution about family and duty and all the rest of it. ‘What future did we leave the Mahdek?’ I asked, forcing the words out against the pressure of his spell on my jaw. ‘We massacred an entire people to take the oases from them rather than share the magic of these lands.’

  He laughed at that. ‘Share? You think the Mahdek wanted to share the oases with us? They expected us to be as servants to them. Children, allowed only brief periods of time inside the oases, given access to a mere fraction of our magical potential until they decided we were ready. No.’ He slammed his fist against his chest – an unusually uncontrolled gesture for him. ‘No. We had the greater talent for wielding the primal forces of magic. Nature itself demanded we have control of the oases. What we did wasn’t simply necessary – it was right.’

  ‘Then why lie about it?’

  ‘Kellen, stop goading him,’ Shalla warned.

  I ignored her, ignored the pain in my jaw and the threat in my father’s gaze. ‘Why the lie, Father? Why have fifteen generations of Jan’Tep lied to themselves and their children, claiming we were the ones who created the oases? Concocting tales of how the Mahdek tried to murder us with demon magic.’ I pressed a finger to the twisting black marks around my eye. ‘Telling those of us cursed with the shadowblack that it was evidence of some fault in us, when the truth was that we are the inheritors of the poison our ancestors brought upon our own people. You spoke of our future, Father. I wonder, what lie will you tell the rest of the Jan’Tep this time?’

  ‘I will not lie to our people. I learned from you the price we pay for keeping secrets from each other. No. It is a harsh truth, but one we must face together.’

  ‘Easy to say. Harder once you see how quickly they’ll despise you.’

  He smiled then, the small smile of a petty man who, for a long time now, has wanted to prove his moral superiority to his failed, exiled, worthless son.

  He made a gesture with his right hand. I wondered what spell he was casting now, but it turned out to be no spell at all. It was a signal.

  The air shimmered in waves behind us. One by one, mages became visible, standing silent vigil at all that had unfolded. A Jan’Tep war coven. Seventy-seven mages. Not only had my father not lost his posse after the attack on the Ebony Abbey, but new mages had joined to replace those who’d died.

  You could do a lot of damage to the world with seventy-seven mages. Once the Daroman and Berabesq armies had smashed themselves against each other, a full war coven would be able to subdue the rest with ease.

  Suddenly all six of my father’s bands sparked, and the glow from them cleaved the darkness. ‘I am Ke’heops, head of the House of Ke, Lord Magus and Mage Sovereign of the Jan’Tep people, and the man who will secure the future of his nation, no matter the cost. I did not ask for this burden, but it is mine, and I will fulfil that destiny.’

  I couldn’t speak any more. My jaw ached too badly from the iron grip of his spell. As much as it hurt, some smaller, dispassionate part of myself wondered how long it would take for the bone to break.

  ‘It’s enough, Father,’ Shalla said. ‘Let Ke’helios down. I will put a sleep spell on him and we can—’

  ‘No. No! Always you coddle him, despite my commands. For once he will see the truth unfold. For once he will understand that he has never had the power to stop us.’ My father gestured with his fingers, as though beckoning me, and I found myself floating towards him. ‘I am going to bring you with me now, as I go and kill that Berabesq boy as you were meant to do. I will kill the Argosi protecting him too, and that filthy nekhek rodent you call your “business partner” – was that too a way to mock us? Playing the fool who can’t tell the difference between a familiar and a beastly little vermin whose entire species should have been eliminated long ago?’ His other hand slapped the air, and I felt a blow so hard I saw stars. ‘But most of all, I am going to kill that Mahdek bitch Ferius Parfax, who came to our city three years ago and stole you from us. From me.’

  ‘Father, please, that’s enough.’

  Ke’heops wasn’t listening any more though. ‘She’s a Mahdek. Did you know that? Our ancient enemy, and yet you, boy, you listened to all her vile lies, lapped them up like a dog. Because you wanted to believe her. Because you wanted to hate us.’

  With another wave of his hand, the iron spell faded, and I found myself flung to the sand.

  ‘I am going to kill them all, Kellen, and you will witness every moment of it.’ He came closer, leaning down so I could see the raw, unbreakable determination in his eyes. ‘And then I am going to put a mind chain on you. For the rest of your life you will know exactly what happened, will see it over and over again, without ever being able to speak of it. I will bring you to the Daroman queen, and when I tell her of how we saved her from their god and that now she must go to war with Berabesq, she will turn to you, trusting in your loyalty, and ask if what I’ve said is true. And then, Kellen, though it tears your soul in two, you will find yourself nodding, and telling her that, yes, everything is as I’ve described it, and with love in your eyes and hate in your heart, you will urge her to trust me as she does you.’

  Never before was I so terrified of Ke’heops, of my father, than in that moment. Mer’esan, dowager magus of our clan, had been one of the most powerful mages our people had ever produced, and yet I’d witnessed her suffering under the effects of the mind chain her husband had bound her with to keep her from revealing our people’s past.

  ‘Well, boy?’ Ke’heops asked. ‘No clever remarks now? Have your Argosi masters not taught you some secret art to resist a mind chain?’

  Already I saw the bands for iron, silk and blood glow brighter on his forearms. His finger twitched through a series of somatic forms too quick for me to follow. He was practising the motions of the spell.

  Actually, Father,’ I said, pushing myself up from the sand, ‘I do have a trick that can stop a mind chain.’

  It wasn’t a lie, because while there was no Argosi training that could save me from the spell, and no way I would ever be able to break it, as I reached for the powders in my holsters, I knew one thing my father didn’t: I would die before I let him cast it on me.

  Always figured I’d end up blowing myself up with this spell one day, I thought. Just never thought it would be on purpose.

  ‘No!’ Shalla ran to our father, grabbing at his arm. On some level she’s always known me better than he did. ‘Father, no. Let me talk to Ke’helios, let me—’

  He shoved her away. ‘Enough, Sha’maat. I’ve acceded to your pleas for mercy one too many times. Tolerated your brother’s disobedience more than any father should ever have to. Been diminished in my own eyes, in your mother’s …’ Anger and sorrow drifted away like grains of sand on the desert breeze until both the wounded father and the grieving husband were gone. Only Ke’heops, saviour of a doomed people’s once glorious way of life, remained. ‘Now you will heed me, Sha’maat. Go and make sure the Argosi and the others have not fled.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,’ I said, only then realising something that should’ve been obvious to me a while ago. ‘They’re already here.’

  Pretty much all card tricks involve misdirection – focusing the mark’s attention on one thing so you can set up the reveal – so I wasn’t surprised that Ferius and the others had used the cover of my father’s magical demonstration of his mad dream to sneak up on us. I wasn’t even particularly s
hocked at the fact that they’d actually buried themselves just under the sand and were now rising up as if from the ground itself. No, what I hadn’t expected was that it wasn’t just Ferius, Lily, Rosie, Storm, Nephenia and Ishak who’d showed up to save my neck, it was all the Argosi.

  One after another they rose like ghosts from a hundred graves.

  I caught sight of a tall, broad-chested man brushing the sand off his shaved head. Ebony markings twisted along his cheeks, coming to three points beneath each eye like black teardrops. The grin on his face hit me like one of those unpredictable, inexplicable rains that sometimes appear even during the worst desert droughts.

  ‘Butelios?’ I asked, halfway convinced he was some kind of mirage. ‘What are you doing here?’

  He gestured to the biggest woman I’d ever seen, who was, at that moment, sliding spiked knuckledusters onto her hands. ‘When my meitri, the Path of Skyward Oaks, informed me that the end of the world was near, I naturally assumed I’d find my good friend Kellen nearby.’

  A wave of snarls and growls swept over the dunes to the north. Everyone, Jan’Tep and Argosi alike, turned to witness dozens upon dozens of leaping and gliding bundles of fur-covered rage and fury descending upon us. At their lead was a particularly devilish-looking squirrel cat, his coat a blazing scarlet with jagged golden stripes like bolts of lightning.

  Turned out my business partner hadn’t forgotten about me after all.

  ‘What?’ he said, peering up at me with those devious eyes of his. ‘I figured if there was one squirrel cat around, there had to be others, right?’

  My father’s posse looked suitably distressed by the sudden appearance of so many Argosi and even more so by the arrival of an entire tribe of nekhek. I caught many of their bands fading as their concentration failed them. But these were proper mages, many of them lords magi, and it didn’t take long before the desert glistened with the reflected light of their magic.