The animal reached a paw into the narrow three-inch gap that separated the two wood-framed horizontal panes of glass. They were secured in position by a lever that required a small key to unlock it. When I was younger I used to try for hours to find a way to get it open, with everything from thin steel pins to a mallet. ‘You won’t be able to open it,’ I informed the animal as he floundered at it with his paw. ‘The only way is if you have –’
The lock slid off the lever and down onto the floor. The two halves of the window swung open and the squirrel cat clambered onto the sill and settled on his haunches.
‘How did you do that?’ I asked.
‘Do what?’
‘Undo the lock.’
He looked at me with a quizzical expression on his furry muzzle, his head tilted to one side. ‘I thought you said you weren’t simple.’
The sound of another chittering voice came from outside. It seemed to irritate him. He turned his head towards the open window. ‘It was a joke,’ he said. ‘I’m being friendly.’
‘You brought another …’ It occurred to me that I wasn’t sure how to refer to the animal. Did they prefer being called squirrel cats or nekheks?
‘She insisted on coming,’ he said, turning back to me. He raised his shoulders towards his ears and dropped them again. I took this to be a shrug. ‘Females! Am I right?’
I had absolutely no idea what he meant. ‘Yeah, females,’ I said, then feeling particularly awkward, I asked, ‘Do you have a name?’
He chittered something at me, then, seeing the confusion on my face, repeated it.
‘Reichis?’ I asked.
‘Close enough.’ He hopped off the windowsill and onto the table, then crawled onto my chest, his claws tapping against the fabric of my shirt. I had to stop myself from trying to shake him off. I’d seen what those claws could do. ‘So,’ he said, peering at me with those black beady eyes, ‘we should probably get the negotiations started.’
‘Negotiations?’
He let out a breath that I caught full in the nostrils. It was disgusting. ‘You sure you ain’t—’
‘I’m not simple,’ I said, irritation temporarily overcoming my anxiousness. ‘I’ve just never … negotiated with a squirrel cat, that’s all.’
‘You don’t say.’ He sat back on my chest, leaning on his haunches as he glanced around my father’s study, his eyes pausing on every shiny bauble and metal instrument. ‘Nice place you have here,’ he said. He brought his paws up to just below his whiskers and starting clacking his claws together as his thick bushy tail twitched excitedly.
‘Why are you doing that?’ I asked, suddenly suspicious.
Reichis seemed surprised. ‘Doing what? I’m not doing—’
‘You’re tapping your paws together.’
‘No, I’m not,’ he said, and immediately brought them back down.
‘Yes, you were. I saw you. What does it mean?’
He hesitated. ‘It’s … It’s something my people do when we’re, you know, intimidated by a superior intellect.’ He looked down at me. ‘That’s why I’m going to free you in exchange for only four … five of these little trinkets you have here.’
‘Five?’ I’m not sure why the number bothered me. None of the items in the room belonged to me anyway, but I had the feeling he was trying to con me.
‘It’s a good deal, kid. Trust me.’ He started blinking his eyes at me in a strange repetitive pattern. ‘You want this deal, kid. You want to say yes.’
My experience with squirrel cats was admittedly limited, but there was a connection between us that made me recognise what he was doing. ‘Are you trying to mesmerise me?’ I asked.
‘What? No.’ He stopped the blinking. ‘I don’t even know what that is. Mesmerising? Never heard of it.’
‘You’re a terrible liar,’ I said.
That seemed to genuinely offend him. ‘I’m an excellent liar,’ he growled, baring his teeth at me. ‘You tell anyone otherwise and I’ll—’
He was interrupted again by the chittering from outside.
‘Gods damn it, leave me alone,’ he muttered.
Squirrel cats have gods?
He started chittering back to the other animal out the window, too quickly for me to follow what he was saying. Then he turned back to me and grunted. ‘Fine. Look, kid, since technically you set me free from those other skinbags, I’ll get you out of your current predicament for free.’ He turned back to chitter out the open window. ‘Even though I saved his stupid sister from bonding with that sick mutt, which is how I got nabbed in the first place.’
The sounds of movement in the house drew our attention. I realised then that the moon was coming up fast, and soon my parents would be coming in to begin on the next band. Oh spirits of the first mages, I prayed, please don’t let them do it to me again.
‘Hey, kid,’ Reichis said, suddenly sniffing around my face. ‘Put a dam in that river. We’ve got work to do.’
‘I’m not crying,’ I said.
He gave his little huh-huh-huh laughing sound. ‘Now who’s a terrible liar?’
Before I could reply he crawled over to the strap holding my right wrist. He started working at it with his teeth, pulling for a few seconds on one side, then moving to the other, the whiskers on his face tickling my wrist even as the hairs on his tail got in my nose. I was afraid I’d start giggling like an idiot, but in less than a minute he had the first strap off. ‘Think you can do the other one?’ he asked. ‘I’ll get going on your ankles.’
I reached over and started undoing the strap over my left wrist. I was a little embarrassed that it took me longer than it had taken him.
‘Okay,’ he said, when all four restraints were off me and he’d jumped back onto the windowsill. ‘You’re free, kid.’ When I didn’t move, he started making a waving motion with one paw. ‘Go on, little bird. Fly away. Fly away now.’
Squirrel cats, it turns out, are sarcastic assholes.
As quietly as I could, I swung my legs off the table and got to my feet. It turned out to be a bad idea, because a second later I was face-flat on the floor.
Chittering resumed from outside the window.
‘I forgot, all right?’ Reichis chittered back. He hopped down onto the floor next to me. ‘You’re still pretty drugged, kid, and they’ve had you tied down for a couple of days so you’re bound to be a little out of it.’
‘A little?’ The only reason I hadn’t yelled out when I’d hit the floor was that I could barely feel my face. Slowly and awkwardly I got to my hands and knees. There was no way I was going to be able to climb out the window.
‘Don’t worry,’ Reichis said, seeing my discomfort. ‘I brought something to help with that.’ He opened his mouth and reached in with one paw to pull something small and green from inside one cheek. ‘It’s lightning weed. It’ll perk you right up.’
‘You want me to eat something you’ve been carrying around in your mouth?’
He gestured with a paw to his body. ‘You see any pockets here?’ The thin lips of his mouth pulled back in what I assumed was a grin. ‘Of course, there was one other place I could’ve stored it.’
Ech. ‘This is fine. Thanks.’ I reached for the piece of green leaf in his paw but was distracted by the sounds of arguing from outside the room.
My mother’s voice was faint, weary. ‘We must rest another day, Ke’heops. You can barely stand as it is. The effort is too much.’
‘No,’ he replied. I don’t think I’d ever heard my father sound so tired. ‘I will finish this. I just need … a moment.’ A key was scratching at the lock, as if he kept missing the keyhole.
‘Ah, crap,’ Reichis said, pulling the weed away from me.
‘What are you doing?’ I whispered. ‘In about one minute my parents are going to come through that door.’
‘That’s the problem, kid. Even if you swallow the lightning weed, it’ll take longer than that to go through your stomach and into your blood.’
The thought
of being discovered by my parents, of being tied back down to the table, this time with stronger restraints that meant I’d never escape, drove me half mad with fear. I started trying to clamber up to the window, but I couldn’t. In desperation I turned to Reichis. ‘Help me,’ I said. ‘Please, I can’t …’ That was when I noticed he had stuck the leaf back in his mouth and was chewing it. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Give me your arm,’ he said, his mouth now full of foaming green muck.
‘What? Why –’
He growled and then reached out with his paws and grabbed hold of my right wrist. Before I knew what was happening he bit down on it hard, his teeth piercing the skin and sinking deep into the flesh. I was about to scream from the shock and pain when something changed inside me. It felt like a flame running up the length of my arm, into my chest and down through the rest of my body. The room lit up, every colour brighter, clearer. I could think clearly again. More importantly, I could feel the strength return to my limbs.
‘Works best when it goes straight into the blood,’ Reichis explained, leaping up onto the windowsill. He looked around longingly at the jars and instruments in my mother’s study. ‘If you want to bring any souvenirs, kid, I’d do it now. I doubt you’ll want to come back here anytime soon.’
I couldn’t imagine anything I’d want from my parents ever again, but then I saw the deck of cards Ferius had given me sitting on a little shelf near the table, the razor-thin steel one and the dark red card on top. I grabbed them and stuffed them into the pocket of my trousers. ‘Let’s go,’ I said as I climbed out the window and into the night air. ‘I’ve got everything I’ll ever need from this place.’
29
The Hideout
I scaled the wooden trellis that ran down the side of the house to the garden. On a normal good day it would have taken me ten minutes to do it without breaking my neck, but with the lightning weed in me I got down in less than one.
‘How do you skinbags ever escape from predators when you move that slowly?’ Reichis asked from where he was still perched outside the window. He sprang, spreading his arms and legs wide. The furry membrane between his limbs billowed as it caught the air, and he glided down effortlessly, swooping past my head to land several yards ahead of me. Without pausing he bounded out of the garden and on to the street. I followed as fast as I could, which turned out to be pretty fast considering I was barefoot.
We ran down the streets and alleyways of my neighbourhood, staying in the shadows, avoiding places where people congregated. I tried as hard as possible not to think about the black markings around my left eye, about the pain that still laced my forearms where my own parents had tried to permanently counter-band me, and the fact that the life I had always envisioned for myself was now truly gone.
Shalla and Ferius are out there somewhere. Focus on that.
Reichis seemed to have a remarkable knowledge of the town, leading us through small paths between houses, into other people’s gardens that just happened to lead out onto darkened alleys.
‘How do you know the town so well?’ I asked, running close behind.
‘I’m a professional, kid. I’ve been casing your place for days. I worked this route out the first night.’
Squirrel cats have professions?
Reichis and the other squirrel cat kept up the pace, making it hard for me to catch my breath. It wasn’t until we found ourselves outside a burnt-out single-storey building near the edge of the Sha-Tep district that he allowed us to stop. ‘You can go vomit in there if you want,’ he said, pointing with his snout towards the blackened door hanging off one hinge that led inside.
‘I don’t need to vomit. Why would you think that?’ I asked.
Reichis walked up to me and sniffed. ‘You’re definitely going to puke, kid.’
A sudden wave of nausea overwhelmed me. I ran inside the building and dropped to my knees, green, foamy bile pouring from my mouth as I coughed uncontrollably.
‘Yeah,’ the squirrel cat chittered quietly behind me. ‘I probably should have mentioned that lightning weed has a few unpleasant side effects.’
‘You think?’ I asked, wiping my mouth with my sleeve only to be overcome once again. I knelt there, unable to do anything but shiver as my guts churned. A light rain started outside, rare for this time of year. It pattered against the slat wood roof, dripping through the gaps to land on the back of my head and neck as I heaved over and over onto the dirt floor. Kill me, I thought. Just kill me right here and now.
Reichis sauntered over and sat on his haunches. ‘Can’t you … you know?’ He made an odd circular motion with one paw.
‘What?’
‘Do some magic or something. Aren’t your people supposed to be good at that?’
A chittering noise from just outside followed by a soft growl drew our attention, but Reichis didn’t seem concerned. ‘Oh, right,’ he said, turning back to me. ‘You’re an invalid or something.’
‘I’m not an invalid. I’m just …’ Just what? I stared down at my forearms where my parents had tattooed counter-sigils into five of the six bands. Iron, ember, sand, silk, blood … the metal inks my father had tattooed onto me were thick and perfectly formed as though they were shackles melted into my skin. But shackles can be broken. These can’t. All that was left was the band for breath, weakest of the six.
‘Hey, kid,’ the squirrel cat said. ‘You’re leaking again.’
‘I’m not crying.’
He gave a little snort. ‘Sure. Must just be your Jan’Tep magic summoning rain from your eyeballs.’
‘You make a lousy familiar, you know that?’
That got me a growl. His fur bristled, and I swear it looked darker all of a sudden; I could see fierce silver-grey stripes along his flanks. ‘My people are the apex predators of the world, got it? When devils want to scare their young into obedience, do you know what they do?’
‘I didn’t know devils had children.’
‘They threaten to let the squirrel cats in to eat their eyeballs, that’s what! We ain’t nobody’s familiars. What do I look like to you anyway? Some kind of weak-willed, feeble-minded falcon who’s going to bring you field mice to nibble on while you sit on your ass all day?’
‘That’s not what familiars do.’
He looked away and waved a paw in the air. ‘Whatever. Clean yourself up, would you? You look like you’ve got rabies.’
I wiped the last flecks of green foam from my mouth onto the sleeve of my shirt. ‘So I guess all the stories about your kind serving the Mahdek were just myths?’
‘The Mahdek didn’t have familiars,’ he replied. ‘We were more like … business partners.’
‘Business partners?’
He looked back at me and cocked his head. ‘Let’s just say that we and the Mahdek shared a few mutual enemies. Your people, mostly.’
‘So why are you helping me?’
The squirrel cat sauntered over to the door leading outside and chittered loudly. ‘Good question. Why am I helping him?’
A series of chitters and growls followed, none of which I understood. When Reichis looked back at me he just grunted, ‘Females.’
‘How come I can understand you but not any of the other squirrel cats?’ I asked.
Reichis glanced up at me. ‘Do you speak our language?’
‘Not so far as I know.’
‘Then there’s your answer.’
I couldn’t see how that explained anything, but I got the sense he wasn’t interested in discussing it futher. The nausea having mostly passed, I started to push myself up. With the effects of the lightning weed wearing off, I found I was exhausted and the soles of my bare feet hurt like seven hells. After a few false starts, I managed to stand. Barely.
‘Looking good, kid,’ Reichis said unconvincingly.
Suddenly the other squirrel cat leaped into the building and growled. ‘Great,’ Reichis said. He turned to me. ‘Okay, turns out this wasn’t the best hiding place.’
‘What? Why?’
‘Somebody’s tracked you here.’ The other squirrel cat chittered for a moment, then Reichis added, ‘A bunch of somebodies.’
Most tracking spells use a combination of silk and iron magic – silk to bind to the subject’s mind, and iron to create the pull, drawing the mage ever closer to the target. There were any number of people who might be using those spells on me now. My parents for starters. Tennat and his insane brothers. Bloodthirsty Mahdek assassins. I was starting to wonder who wasn’t determined to kill or cripple me.
‘How close are they?’ I asked.
Reichis ran to the door and sniffed the air. ‘Hard to say. This whole city stinks of skinbags.’ He sniffed again. ‘There’s one that’s nearly here though. Female.’ His ears went slightly flat as the sides of his mouth twitched up to reveal his teeth. ‘And soon to be dead.’
‘Wait … What?’
Reichis didn’t reply. Instead he crouched down low, the muscles of his haunches tensing, preparing to pounce, his tail twitching. I could still hear the sound of the rain outside, and beneath it the sound of light footsteps approaching.
‘Oh, this is gonna be fun,’ Reichis snarled.
I sidled up to the door, my back against the adjoining wall. I slid my hand in my pocket and drew the one steel card Ferius had given me.
‘Kellen?’ a voice called from outside. ‘Are you in there?’
Nephenia.
She appeared in the doorway, the fingers of her right hand tracing the form for the spell she’d used to find me. ‘Kellen, you’ve got to get out of here! There are people coming to –’
Too late she saw Reichis and the other squirrel cat. I’d caught the motion from the corner of my eye and, in what was certainly one of the dumber moves in my life, I stepped in front of Nephenia, arms wide. ‘Reichis, don’t.’
If you’ve never had a squirrel cat launch itself at you, jaws wide, claws out, gliding membranes extended and eyes absolutely crazy with rage, well, I don’t recommend it.
‘Reichis, stop!’ I barely got my arm up in time for him to sink his teeth into it. For a second he held on, claws trying to grab for me. I’m pretty sure the little monster would have torn my arm off if the other squirrel cat hadn’t leaped on him and taken him by the neck. Reichis let go almost instantly, landing neatly on the floor and turning his rage on the other animal. ‘Mine!’ he growled.
Spellslinger: The fantasy novel that keeps you guessing on every page Page 20
