Spellslinger: The fantasy novel that keeps you guessing on every page

by Sebastien de Castell

  ‘When you were duelling Tennat the other day,’ Shalla said, ‘you spoke to that falcon flying overhead.’

  I nearly dropped the pack to the ground. ‘Shalla, that was just a trick. I was just pretending so that I could—’

  ‘Scare Tennat. I know. But you haven’t thought about the reason why it scared him. It’s because a mage with a power animal can channel magic even if their bands are still in place.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So what if you really did have a power animal?’

  It was a stupid hypothetical question. The kind of impossible thought experiment that appealed to ageing spellmasters, my annoying sister, and pretty much no one else. ‘Well, we’re never going to find out, are we? Since you need actual magic to summon a power animal, which, in case you hadn’t noticed, I don’t have any more.’

  ‘But I do.’

  I stopped right there. ‘Father’s allowing you to continue your trials? I thought he was going to make you wait because you …’ almost killed your own brother.

  I supposed he had to let her finish. If the council was considering the strength of the bloodline, then my father’s only hope of becoming clan prince was for Shalla to make an impression on the lords magi. She wouldn’t receive her mage name until she was sixteen, but by passing her trials three years early she could prove the strength of our house. Not that any of that would help me. ‘Shalla, hardly anyone bonds with power animals any more. They’re too risky. Why would …?’

  She looked down at her feet. ‘Mother helped me convince father that a familiar might … temper my behaviour somewhat.’

  Fat chance, I thought. While it made sense in theory that when a mage and their familiar bond there’s a kind of fusing of personalities, I doubted some cat or duck was going to teach my sister humility.

  Shalla coughed and I noticed again how pale she looked. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ I asked. ‘You look worse than Tennat, and he nearly got his neck sliced by Ferius last night.’

  ‘It’s just a cold,’ she said, and started down the path again. ‘I’m not going to let it get in the way.’

  ‘So what does any of this have to do with me?’ I asked.

  ‘I convinced Father to let you be my watcher. You’re going to protect me.’

  I nearly broke out laughing. ‘You expect me to guard you from evil Mahdek spirits on the Snake? With what? My winning personality?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Kellen. Nobody’s seen any Mahdek for decades. Besides, I’ve got my own warding spells and no doubt Mother will have cast a scrying spell to watch over me. All I need you to do is keep any bugs or sick animals from trying to bond with me while I’m under the calling spell.’

  ‘So I get to watch you become even more powerful, and in exchange I get what?’

  She smiled as if she was about to reveal that she was the one who invented the wheel. ‘I’ve got a plan. Once I’ve got my falcon—’

  ‘What makes you think you’ll get a falcon?’ I interrupted. Falcons were bold creatures who seldom allowed themselves to be commanded by humans and so were the rarest of power animals to respond to a summoning. ‘You’re more likely to spend the rest of your life bonded to a mouse or a tree frog.’

  Shalla rolled her eyes at me. ‘Kellen, please. Can you imagine me with something that weak? I’d rather just die and come back and try again in the next life.’

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘If you get a falcon …’

  ‘When I get my falcon – I’ve figured out a way to keep the summoning spell going even once the bonding has taken place. I’ll use a sympathy spell to channel my will through the falcon to summon one of its fellows. If there’s another one anywhere within ten miles of here I’ll make it come and then it will try to bond with me, but I’ll already be bonded to my one.’

  ‘So the bird will have no choice but to bond with me?’ I tried to imbue the words with as much incredulity as possible, but the thought of getting my own power animal was beyond tantalising. A falcon. A falcon. Not only would I have a way to channel my magic past the damned bands on my forearms, but I’d be able to pass the final two tests. Also, pretty much everyone else in town would be lining up for my attention. A falcon. ‘But … how can that work? I mean, it makes sense, but why hasn’t somebody else tried it?’

  Shalla smiled. ‘Because regular mages get so lost in the moment of bonding that they forget everything else. People are stupid and sappy that way, but I’m not. I’ll keep my focus and I’ll keep the spell going, and you, my brother, will have your own power animal.’

  I looked at my sister, struggling not to drop to my knees, throw my arms around her waist and promise to for ever more be the best brother the world had ever seen. There were a hundred reasons to doubt both Shalla’s motivations and her ability to pull this off. But if she could? If it were at all possible?

  A falcon.

  Hours later I sat with my back against a tree, staring up at the sky through the forest canopy as the moon reached its zenith. I kept the small cooking fire we’d made using a simple fire spell (well, Shalla had made) at my back so that I wouldn’t lose the night vision I needed to keep an eye on my sister, who was meditating in her spell circle some thirty yards away. She’d insisted that I keep my distance so that the sound of my breathing wouldn’t distract her, but I knew it was really because she didn’t want to risk my presence tainting her spell.

  Like a lot of mind spells – what my people call silk magic – the calling is basically invisible to the eye. If I looked very, very carefully, I could almost imagine a subtle shimmer around Shalla – a soft expansion of the air as the spell pushed outwards into the forest, summoning a power animal to her.

  It was kind of remarkable that any of this was happening. Most initiates spend days trying to cast it, only to fail from exhaustion and have to try again another time. Shalla, despite obviously being at less than her best, of course got the spell to work on the very first try. As petty as it sounds, part of me wished that nothing, not even a cockroach, would come near her.

  My job as watcher was relatively simple. If an insect or a sick animal tried to approach Shalla, I had to chase it away. Insects are unsuitable as familiars. I’m not entirely sure why, but I think it has something to do with their brains being too simple, incapable of proper communication with a mage. So bonding with one would be kind of a waste and it would keep other animals from answering the summons.

  Sick animals were more dangerous. A sick animal would try to bond with the mage in a desperate attempt to prolong its life. But the illness inside the animal would infect the mage, crippling their magic for years. Even after the animal died, the sickness remained. It wasn’t a death sentence for a mage, but it was close.

  I suppose I should have been at least a little proud that Shalla trusted me with something so important. But by then I was fairly sure of two things. First, she had almost certainly lied about having our parents’ permission to summon a power animal. Being Shalla, she probably figured that once it was done and she’d shown how wonderfully things had turned out, everyone would forgive her.

  The second reason why she likely felt safe with me as her watcher was that she probably didn’t need one. A perfectly formed calling spell has two parts, one to summon the right type of creature, and a second to warn off the wrong ones. So chances were that any sick animal would just avoid her. So really there wasn’t much for me to do except sit and wait and hope that she could really do what she promised.

  That thought kept me occupied for the first few hours of the night, but as the chill began to set into my bones, so too did my doubts whether Shalla would really summon a familiar for me. I glanced over at her again, looking for some sign of duplicity. She looked as still and serene and arrogantly self-assured as ever. Did she even need me there at all? Or was I just an audience to witness her upcoming triumph?

  Shalla loved to chide me for being lazy and acted as if all I needed in order to become a powerful mage was to really apply myself, but I knew she
took no end of pleasure in having more power than I did. Would she really risk giving that up? Or would she back out on the deal once she had what she wanted?

  I tried copying her cross-legged pose, my arms in front of me, bent at the elbows, my right hand facing outwards with the ring and little finger touching the palm – the sign of reaching out. My left palm faced inwards with the second and third fingers touching, forming the sign of summoning. Using the silent breath that Master Osia’phest had taught us since childhood, I repeated the simple four-syllable incantation over and over. Te-me’en-ka. Te-me’en-ka.

  I closed my eyes, not because the spell required it but because staring at the unsparked tattooed bands on my forearms wasn’t going to help my confidence any. Inside my mind and my heart I shaped my will and thought about falcons. You are summoned. We are meant to be together. We are meant to be soul-bonded. You are summoned. You will come.

  I kept on, over and over, doing my best to ignore the growing pain in my head from the constant recitation of the spell, concentrating on the somatic forms, the silent verbal incantation and the inner shape of my will all at once. Te-me’en-ka. Te-me’en-ka.

  I kept it up for what felt like hours but was probably only a minute or two. The breeze rustled my hair, sending strands of it tickling my face. Drops of sweat stung my left eye. Blinking away the tears did nothing for the pain but broke my concentration completely. I wiped the sweat from my brow and realised I was nearly soaked in it. Nothing had changed. The fire still crackled, Shalla still sat in her circle thirty yards away from me. It was as if the entire world had ignored my efforts.

  Oh ancestors, I’ll forgive you for every lousy thing you’ve ever done to me if you’ll just give me a power animal. I promise I’ll be good to it. I’ll feed it whatever it wants and keep it from harm. I’ll give it as long and happy a life as I possibly can. Just don’t leave me like this. Don’t leave me alone.

  It was only then that I realised I’d mistaken the crunching of dried leaves for the crackling of the fire. Something had been hiding in the darkness, and it was coming for me.

  15

  The Masks

  There was a brief instant where, in my dazed state, I managed to convince myself that somehow, despite the bands on my forearms and the weakness of my will, the spell had worked. A power animal was coming to me. Okay, so it was running along the ground, which meant it wasn’t a falcon, but still …

  The fantasy was soon shattered. Not even the most ardent self-deception will let your brain miss the heavy footsteps of men approaching for long.

  My first thought was that it would be Ra’fan and Ra’dir, but there was no way Ra’meth would risk having his family connected to a direct attack on the House of Ke. Three men were coming, obscured by the shadows of the trees. Their dark travelling clothes gave no clue as to who they were or even what country they might be from. As they crept forward I could make out the masks covering their faces. Black-and-red lacquer, shaped like grinning monsters, with assorted fangs and horns and tusks adorning their features. Mahdek, I thought, suddenly unable to breathe. They used to wear masks like these when performing their vile demonic rituals. I scrambled to my feet. They’ve come back. The Mahdek have come back.

  ‘You’ll stay away if you know what’s good for you!’ I shouted, trying to speak in the commanding tones of my father. The words sounded a lot more threatening in my head than they did carried into the night air on my trembling, high-pitched voice. ‘I have dark and terrible magics!’ I added, which managed to sound even more ridiculous. Ancestors, I thought, if you have to send the Mahdek to torment me, couldn’t you at least give me something clever to say? I looked over at Shalla for help but she was still lost in her spell, oblivious to the danger.

  The men in their masks crept closer and my memory conjured up the shiny, metallic ink drawings on the old scrolls that the masters would sometimes pull out to frighten us. Terrifying images that would haunt our nightmares. ‘Who among you would fight the ancient enemy?’ Master Osia’phest would demand when we acted above ourselves. ‘Which of you would face the Mahdek wizard wearing his ritual death mask?’

  Not me, that’s for sure.

  The tallest of the three men stepped forward. His mask had two pairs of curved horns, one red, one black, on either side of his temples. ‘Take him,’ he said to the others.

  A wide-set man whose mask had a third eye in the middle ran for me so quickly that in my rush to get away I backed into a tree. My head slammed against the hard bark and floating yellow lights filled my vision. My attacker would have got his arms around me were it not for my knees having already buckled, dropping me low to the forest floor where I scrambled around the tree.

  Just as I got my feet under me I felt him grab at the back of my shirt. But now fear was replaced by something else: desperation. Desperation is a lot like fear only more useful. The big man spun me around and slammed me into the tree, but as he reached for me a second time I pulled out the metal card Ferius had given me the night before and slashed out with it, slicing the skin of his palm. His scream prompted me to attack again, this time at the other hand. I caught him on the wrist and the razor-sharp edge sent blood spitting into the air as he fell backwards out of the way.

  A third man, this one with long, curved tusks extending up from the lower half of his mask, started towards me. I had a brief moment in which I could have escaped, but I hesitated. Even if I got away, then what? I was too far from town to get help. If my mother was scrying to watch over Shalla, then she and my father would be on their way already. But they wouldn’t get here in time to save my sister if I ran.

  Not knowing what else to do, I braced myself against the tree behind me and kicked out at the second attacker. Too soon, damn it. He was still too far, so when my foot connected with his stomach it barely brushed him. In desperation I threw the card at his face. No, idiot! Not the face. Despite my poor throw the card lodged itself in the forehead of his mask and I heard him yelp in surprise. But it didn’t bite deep enough to wound him. Had I thrown it at any other part of his body I might have cut him, slowed him down. Instead he grabbed me by the neck with both hands, his grip so strong that I was instantly unable to breathe. ‘Nasty little bastard,’ he said, his voice a deep, guttural growl. He took one hand away and used it to pull the card out of his mask. ‘Let’s see how you like getting cut.’

  ‘Don’t,’ the leader said, the horns on his mask glinting in the light of my small fire as he came forward. ‘Bind him.’

  Tusks shoved me back, hitting my head hard against the tree trunk a second time to stun me. At first I assumed they’d cast a binding spell on me, but instead the man unwound a length of rope from his waist and used it to tie me to the tree. It struck me as odd that none of these men had attempted to use a spell. I thought the Mahdek were supposed to be dark wizards. Focus, damn it! ‘Shalla!’ I shouted. ‘Wake up! You’ve got to wake up!’

  The leader pushed Tusks out of the way and stood only inches away from me, as if he wanted me to see every inch of his hideous mask. ‘Scream all you want. She’s lost in her little spell, waiting for her darling power animal to come to her.’

  ‘My mother is scrying for us!’ I said. ‘My father will come for us when he—’

  ‘Of course they’re coming. Maybe they can even see us now.’ He looked up at the sky. ‘Can you see me, mighty Ke’heops? Do you know what I’m going to do to your precious child? Come on. Send down a bolt of lightning to strike me!’ He turned back to me and laughed. ‘You see? Even if they are watching, they’re still too far away.’

  ‘Who are you? Why are you doing this?’ I said, my voice pleading.

  Horns ignored me and went back into the trees for a moment, returning with a large brown sack in his hand. ‘Make sure he’s properly tied. He’s a slippery one.’ Tusks walked behind the tree and checked the ropes, tightening them even more and making me groan at the pain in my wrists.

  ‘He’s not going anywhere,’ Tusks said.

&
nbsp; The leader nodded and reached into the sack. What was in there? I had visions of wickedly curved knives or vials of poison. The sack wriggled a bit and I thought, Snake – he’s brought a snake that’s going to bite me and fill my veins with its venom. But when the man’s hand came out of the sack it wasn’t holding a knife or poison or a snake. It was holding a small white animal, its patchy fur revealing red, oozing sores. Its eyes were wet and blurry as if it couldn’t see properly. It was a dog. A sick animal barely holding on to life.

  The leader set the diseased animal down on the forest floor a little ways from Shalla and immediately it began to stumble slowly, awkwardly, painfully towards her. That was when I understood what they were going to do to my sister. That was when I really screamed.

  16

  The Creature

  The more I shouted, the more I begged them to stop, the more the men in masks laughed at me.

  ‘Look at him,’ Tusks said as he wrapped a bandage around Third-Eye’s wrist where I’d slashed it with the metal card. ‘We’re not even doing anything to him and he’s still losing his little Jan’Tep mind.’

  My eyes were focused on the sickly little dog that would take a step towards Shalla, pulled in by her magic, then stop and sit for a moment, licking at a wound on its paw.

  ‘It’s taking too long,’ Third-Eye complained. ‘Just pick up the damn pup and throw it at her.’