“Yes!” Tythonnia shouted. “And don’t ask me why. I don’t know!”
Kinsley watched pandemonium unfold around him as people ran back and forth along the street. He managed to grab someone by the arm, a young woman who looked ready to punch him. He flashed a copper coin in front of her eyes to quiet her down.
“What’s going on?”
The woman plucked the coin from Kinsley’s fingers before answering. “A woman set the buildings on fire with witchcraft!” she said. She pulled free of Kinsley’s grasp and raced down the street.
Kinsley looked around, hoping to spot the likeliest culprits.
It wasn’t the first fire Smiths’ Alley had had to deal with, but that didn’t diminish the chaos. Parents escaping with their children and a fire line struggling to pass water buckets forward filled the street. The buildings were packed tightly enough that it was easy for the fire to spread. People raced around not so much to douse the blaze that ate at two buildings, but to throw water on the adjoining roofs.
With murder in her eyes, Dumas pushed through the crowds, unmindful of the yelps of protestation that greeted her. She couldn’t believe Thoma was dead; she could still see the renegade Tythonnia cutting him down with a spell-
But why do I see my own hand extended?
She was trying to save him. That’s what it was. Thoma was about to die, and she couldn’t save him from-
You.
From Tythonnia! She couldn’t save him from Tythonnia. Indeed, she made an effort to remember it more clearly: Ladonna and Par-Salian were there too. They were torturing Thoma and keeping her at bay.
“Dumas!”
Dumas turned and found Hort racing toward her. “What happened?”
“The renegades,” she said, grabbing Hort by his cloak. “They killed Thoma. They did this. Find them! Kill them and spread their guts across the rooftops!” she cried.
Hort appeared dazed, his eyes glazed at the news.
“You go that way,” she said, pointing north along the street. “I’ll go south! We can’t let them slip by us. Not this time.”
He nodded absently as he moved away. With each step, however, he seemed to gain momentum like a juggernaut. He didn’t seem to care who he pushed out of the way; he was out for blood, and Dumas wasn’t entirely sure why that pleased her so.
Within a few minutes, they were packed and ready to leave. Rosie forced Ladonna into a hug, and despite her protests, she seemed to relax in the older woman’s embrace. Par-Salian thanked her in turn, and to Tythonnia’s surprise, even she was swept into the woman’s arms.
“You have a home here. Visit,” Rosie whispered in her ear.
“I will,” Tythonnia said and meant that promise with teary-eyed fierceness. She liked Rosie and hoped she could return to spend time with the older woman.
The three wizards melted into the street crowd. The fires still raged several blocks away, and the line struggled to keep the blaze contained. For the moment, they were winning, and Tythonnia prayed the fire wouldn’t make it to Rosie’s place. The older woman, in fact, moved into the crowd, trying to help with the line. Her strong arms would be a welcome addition.
They followed the stream of traffic to the north, toward the docks. Men and women not involved in staunching the blaze took their children, their elderly, and a handful of possessions for safekeeping just in case the fire spread.
Tythonnia kept glancing over her shoulder, searching for Dumas or the other hunter. She could see nothing, however; the street was too crowded to do anything but brush over the many faces in the rush. Ladonna walked with some difficulty. The wound needed more time to heal, but she was supported by Par-Salian.
Several people in the crowd gasped, and before Tythonnia could register what was happening, a bank of fog swept over them. At first, she thought it was smoke from the fire, but when the sulfur smell of rotten eggs struck a second later, she understood the nature of the spell.
The stench was overwhelming, and before Tythonnia could stop herself, she’d fallen to her knees and was vomiting violently. Ladonna and dozens of others also succumbed, some clutching their chests and guts as waves of nausea swept over them. The stench of bile made her even sicker, and she was overcome by a bout of dry heaves, her stomach cramping to void what wasn’t there.
She couldn’t move without triggering a new wave of nausea, couldn’t think clearly enough to cast a spell. Two people, including Par-Salian, were still standing. He was fighting the nausea well enough though he seemed a touch green around the gills. He looked around and Tythonnia, in turn, realized none of them could see very far. The cloud extended a considerable distance, and with everyone trapped within the narrow confines of Smiths’ Alley, it may well have extended for several blocks in either direction.
Par-Salian’s fingers danced and slipped over one another before he raised both arms and cried, “Belit gusta!”
Gusts whipped at his trousers and shirt, and the cloud was pushed away. Par-Salian directed its course and cleansed the air around them with a sweep of his hand. He was able to cut a swath through the noxious cloud, though he couldn’t push its effects away from everyone entirely. Only a handful of people were safe, including them.
The fresh air was a welcome blessing, but before Tythonnia could stand, four bolts of light suddenly appeared from the mist ahead of them and slammed into Par-Salian. The blow knocked him off his feet. He hit the street hard, the back of his head bouncing on the cobblestone ground. He groaned in pain, and a weakened Ladonna crawled over to help him.
Tythonnia squinted, trying to see where the bolts had come from. When she realized she couldn’t see their attacker, she decided to go on the defensive until they could rally. She fumbled for the bit of eyelash trapped in amber as she rose to her feet. Her hands moved and the magic responded with a spark that traveled up her spine and into her skull.
“Tak’kelihatan lingkaran,” she said. The spell had saved them before; perhaps it could do so again. The script of magic vanished from her thoughts just as the three of them vanished from sight.
A moment after that, the whole world vanished.
Tythonnia stopped, sudden panic overwhelming her.
No sound came to her, nothing of the screams and cries of the people in the street around her. No sight came either; the world was dark as though the gods had blown out the candle of the sun. She could still smell the lingering sulfur and bile, the sweat and stale air. She could still feel the clothing on her back and the street beneath her.
She swayed, finding it difficult to maintain her balance. The cloud left her weak. Panicked, she swept her arms out in front of her and cried the names of her friends. But if they responded, she couldn’t hear it against the pressure of silence. Time turned momentum against her, the seconds slowly turning into minutes, turning into hours. She felt suspended in an inkwell, not even hearing her own voice, her own breathing.
The blow came out of nowhere, shocking the breath from her lungs and paralyzing her entire body. It struck her in the stomach, like a kick to her midsection. Tythonnia dropped to her knees, unable to inhale. She clutched her belly and tried to curl up into a ball. Another kick stomped down on her shoulder and drove her to the ground. She screamed in pain as the wound tore open again. And yet she heard nothing.
Again the blows came, vicious and without mercy. One attacker, one heavy foot, drove into her again and again, the attack made worse by the horrible, pressing quiet. She screamed even louder, if only to hear her own voice, and flailed to grab the angry foot, to stop the attack. The next kick blew past her hand, however, and struck her squarely in the jaw.
The rush of blood filled her ears. Blind, senseless, she reached out to stop the attacks. Her hands brushed against the ground and swam through the empty air. Nothing came and the nothing lingered. Was it mercy or cruelty that stopped the attack? Did her attacker take pity on her, or was he toying with her?
Bright light filled her vision and drove iron nails into her skull. She shi
elded her eyes and suddenly realized she could see again. Sound returned too, like liquid filling an urn. She blinked and swooned, the blow still ringing through her head. Her jaw felt wet, and her fingers came away glistening red. It took a moment to realize someone was helping her off the ground.
“… on,” the voice said, filtering through the cotton in her skull. “Can you walk?”
Tythonnia found herself staring at a handsome young man with slightly rounded features, a clean face, and green eyes. He was dressed well, with a crimson and silk doublet and flared, red pants.
“Who…?” Tythonnia managed.
“The man who just saved your life,” he said.
Tythonnia saw Par-Salian and Ladonna rising from the ground as well as the body of a large, cloaked man. She recognized the hunter from Virgil’s trial and the High Clerist’s Tower. The stench cloud had dissipated, and everyone was taking as wide a berth around them as they could.
“Is he-?” Tythonnia asked, motioning to the hunter.
“Dead? No,” the man said. “That would cause too many problems with the local constables. Follow me.”
“What?” Tythonnia asked. She was still confused and not a little dazed.
“Do you want sanctuary or not?” the man asked them. By then, Par-Salian and Ladonna were also exchanging glances as they approached. “Anyone who runs afoul of renegade hunters is safe with us.”
Ladonna took the initiative since both Par-Salian and Tythonnia seemed knocked clear of their wits. “Sanctuary, yes,” she said. “Get us out of here, please.”
The man nodded and ushered them through the crowd as best he could. Within minutes, they were outside Smiths’ Alley with the unforgiving daylight beating down upon them. Minutes after that, they’d located a coachman to take them away entirely.
The man introduced himself as Kinsley. He explained how the renegade hunter had incapacitated all three of them before he started kicking Tythonnia. Had Kinsley not intervened, the big man was surely going to beat all three of them to death.
The coachman arrived at Merchant’s Pier, at a harbor keelboat with a large deckhouse that dominated the vessel’s profile. The ship was one of many that catered to the larger galleys that were waiting to dock and couldn’t afford to keep their cargoes aboard for a minute longer. For the moment, it was wedded to a small pier, its lower deck empty and ready to receive wares. The captain, a dwarf of all things, asked no questions while Kinsley brought his three passengers on board and settled them belowdecks. He promised to return later.
Hurt and spent by their recent ordeal, the three companions quietly tended to each other’s injuries before exhaustion overtook them. They fell asleep atop their bedrolls, to the gentle rocking of the swell and the crooning of creaking lumber. By the time they awoke, it was night outside and their only light came from a dirty lantern. They ate a meal of cured meats and fruits, devouring their stock with barely a care before the deck above them creaked under the weight of footsteps.
Each of them prepared their spells, their reagents hidden in their hands and the arcane words ready to be spoken.
Kinsley walked down the stairs accompanied by a second man. The companion wore gray robes; he was a large man, wide at the shoulders, and his mouth and chin pinched with a black beard and mustache. The same colored hair hung in long wild locks from his head. In his hand he carried a plain gnarled staff, but Tythonnia realized Ladonna was studying the staff.
“I hope you’ve all rested,” Kinsley said, “because as of right now, you three are hunted fugitives wanted for starting a fire in Smiths’ Alley and for murder.”
“That wasn’t us,” Tythonnia said in protest.
“Perhaps,” Kinsley said. “But we protect our own. You can’t stay in Palanthas.”
“Who’s he?” Ladonna asked, nodding to the large man.
“My name is Raff,” the man said. “And I’m here to bring you to safety.”
“Safety?” Par-Salian said. “Where are you taking us?”
“To meet our leader,” Raff said, “Berthal.”
“That’s nice,” Ladonna said, bluffing. “And who in the Abyss is Berthal?”
“The man who’ll save us all,” Kinsley said. “Now enough chatter. It’s time to leave.”
CHAPTER 13
Laid Bare
Red-robed wizards and acolytes bustled along the hallways, each one on some crucial errand. The desert sun of the Northern Wastes beat its heat into the rocks and stones that clothed Abrasama Keep. It was an unpleasantly hot and sticky day, but there was little complaint. Everyone was too preoccupied, for the order owing fealty to the red moon, Lunitari, was in turmoil.
Belize walked through the corridors and tried not to smile at the contained commotion around him. Everything had gone according to plan, almost as if the moons themselves ordained his plots and machinations. That day was the culmination of years of planning and aggressive daring. That day was the beginning of his rise to power.
Two red robe wizards stood outside the solid oak door on guard or on vigil. Belize couldn’t tell which, nor did he care enough to ask. He nodded to the door, and one of the wizards quickly opened it for him.
The room beyond was dark and surprisingly cool. It was hot outside and humid, thanks to the Turbidus Ocean on whose shoreline they sat. A handful of lonely orbs floating near the ceiling provided magical light, but they were so dimmed as to make candles blinding. The shadows made murky the room’s dimensions, though he could see the hint of a bed and nightstand, a bookshelf, a dresser, and a washbasin. It was a chamber he knew well, the bed even more so. A robed physician spoke a gentle word to the patient who lay in repose and glided over to Belize. A mouth appeared in the thicket of his white mustache and beard.
“You’re in time,” he said gravely. “I’ll leave you two to confer.”
Belize nodded and waited for the physician to depart. He went to stand over Yasmine’s deathbed and patiently waited for her to die.
He struggled to hide his smile. Yasmine of the Delving’s last coherent instruction was that Belize was to head the Order of Red Robes. The order had to approve his ascension, but that was almost certainly a formality.
Yasmine’s eyes fluttered open; they were half lidded, her skin so pale that Belize could read the blue map of capillaries that scored her eyelids. She struggled to smile, to speak, but only a thin rasp escaped her lips.
Belize looked around the room and cast two spells in quick succession. The first ensured they were, in fact, alone. The second ensured nobody could hear what he had to say. With those two spells in place, Belize finally allowed his smile to spill open. The words he’d kept to himself finally found their release. Belize couldn’t help gloating. He desperately needed to share with someone. It was a maneuver worthy of boasting and only successful on the condition he remained silent … until that moment.
“The other masters of the orders couldn’t make it here in time, for which they send their sincerest apologies,” Belize said. “But they’re currently dealing with a crisis. It seems that a certain three renegades have been making a mess of things. First at the High Clerist’s Tower and now in Palanthas.”
Belize chuckled to himself.
“They more than exceeded my expectations in the hunt. I knew sending Dumas after them would sow chaos, but this is beyond ideal.”
Yasmine continued staring at him in confusion. Her mouth opened and closed to speak, but no words would sound.
“Shh, shh,” Belize whispered, kissing her lips. “No need to tax yourself so. The poisons I’ve been slowly administering to you, my love, have almost run their course.” He paused, studying her wide-eyed expression. “Oh, did I fail to mention that? You haven’t been dying of illness; I’ve been poisoning you slowly. I’m quite good at it, you know. Well, I suppose you know now, but that’s beside the point.”
A strangled gasp escaped Yasmine’s lips.
“Why, you ask?” Belize shrugged. “Well, poisoning you was the only way to keep you su
sceptible to my suggestions. And it was the fastest way to power. But yes, I also sent Dumas and her hunters after Tythonnia, Ladonna, and Par-Salian.”
Yasmine struggled to speak, but her breath grew shallower with each indrawn hiss of air. She rasped something incoherent.
“Again with the questions,” Belize quipped. “Well, I suppose you deserve an answer. I need Berthal alive, you see. Not because I wish him success, but because I need the conclave preoccupied and looking elsewhere while I maneuver. Thanks to Berthal, and now that incident in Palanthas, nobody will examine your death too closely. In times of crisis, people want continuity and stability. Nobody will oppose my ascension to master of the order. Brilliant, no?”
Yasmine shuddered as she passed through the final stages of death. Her eyes, however, remained clear despite the pain. She focused on Belize and opened her mouth to force out one last word, a spell perhaps. Belize, however, gently clamped his hand over her mouth.
“Farewell, lover,” Belize whispered, drawing in close to her ear. “Now … shut up and die.”
The keelboat had sailed past the naval docks of Palanthas and out into the Bay of Branchala proper. It followed the mountainous coastline until the mountains turned to high-sloped hills just before the Gates of Paladine marked the mouth of the bay and the Turbidus Ocean beyond.
The keelboat anchored close to the sandy shore and ferried its passengers by rowboat to the bay’s western beach. From there, Par-Salian, Tythonnia, and Ladonna followed Raff on foot as he navigated the twisting maze of hill paths to the west. Where they were headed, Raff did not say-at least until the third night of travel, when the Vingaard Mountains were behind them and the grassy plains stretched out before them.
Tythonnia and her compatriots were glad to finally have a bed of grass to sleep on, and within moments after eating a cooked hare beneath the open sky, Ladonna and Par-Salian settled in to their bedrolls. No sooner had they closed their eyes than they were asleep.
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