The Tainted City

by Courtney Schafer

  Stevannes snorted as he broke the letter’s seal. “Progress? Hardly. His spell diagram hasn’t changed a whit all week. All he does is dally over his slate and waste my time.”

  Silence was always the better option with Stevannes, but Kiran couldn’t let the remark go unchallenged. Lena might be the closest thing he had to a friend in Alathia, even allowing him to call her by the short form of her family name, but she reported every scrap of information on his work to her superior, Captain Martennan, and through him, the Council.

  “Deciphering these last power pathways is more difficult than I’d hoped,” Kiran said, carefully mild in tone. “Simon used a technique for them I’m not familiar with.”

  Stevannes’s iron-gray eyes lifted from the letter. “You’re a blood mage, same as he was. Either you’re stalling, or you’re incompetent.”

  “I’m working as fast as I can,” Kiran protested. “You can’t fault me for not instantly grasping Simon’s methodology. He wasn’t my master. His mind follows different paths than Ruslan’s. It’s not an easy task, to think like him—”

  “Easy enough for you, I’d imagine,” Stevannes snapped. “All you blood mages think alike, seeking power without the least shred of morality. The Council should never have agreed to this farce of yours. Better to put down a rabid dog before it bites—”

  “Stevannes.” Lena spoke with cool authority. Though she was only in her mid-twenties and a full decade younger than Stevannes, as Martennan’s first lieutenant she outranked even a master arcanist. “You know how important this work is, and you cannot think your insults are helping.”

  Stevannes’s shoulders stiffened. “Why do you defend him? You know what he is.”

  “I judge men by their actions, not hearsay,” Lena said.

  “Hearsay!” Stevannes looked incredulous. “He raises power by murdering innocents. Not even he denies it.” He jabbed a finger at Kiran. “I saw the report Pevennar and Alyashen wrote after they examined him. Even with his power bound, he still steals life from everything around him. He’s not a man, he’s a parasite.”

  “What?” Kiran’s slate dropped from nerveless fingers to clatter on the table. Six weeks ago he’d agreed to spend a day being poked and prodded by the healers in the Sanitorium in exchange for a scry-vision to confirm Dev’s fair treatment at the mine, but the healers had barely spoken to him. They certainly hadn’t mentioned anything like Stevannes’s claim.

  “Don’t pretend you didn’t know,” Stevannes said. “You may have fooled Lenarimanas with your meek lamb act, but you don’t fool me.”

  Kiran ignored him, looking to Lena. “Is what he says true?”

  Lena sighed. “Yes.”

  Kiran could only stare at Lena, mutely. The dissonant discomfort of the binding heightened until pain clawed along his nerves.

  Lena’s brows drew together. “Kiran, you’re not harming anyone. The power draw is minuscule. Alyashen and Pevennar think it’s completely out of your control, like your heart beating. They have a theory it’s meant to prevent you from aging.”

  Kiran put his head in his hands. He’d known the akhelashva ritual Ruslan had performed when Kiran came of age involved more than anchoring the mark-bond that permanently linked their minds and souls. He’d even known Ruslan had created a connection between Kiran’s body and ikilhia to allow magical repair of physical injury. But he’d thought that connection internal to himself, and under conscious control.

  What else had Ruslan done to him without his knowledge?

  “Did they find anything else?” His voice sounded tinny and faint in his own ears.

  “Nothing conclusive,” Lena said. “The healers say your blood reacts strangely when exposed to the substances they use for healing diagnoses, but they don’t know the cause. Pevennar believes that when Ruslan mark-bound you, he altered your body in a variety of subtle ways to make it more congruent with a blood mage’s style of magic.”

  Stevannes issued a derisive grunt. “More congruent with slaughter and torture, you mean. Let me guess,” he said to Kiran. “It feels good when you kill someone, doesn’t it?”

  Power rushing in, sweet and burning, like sunlight after endless dark—Kiran couldn’t get enough air. “I don’t kill people.”

  Stevannes’s mouth curled, his eyes horribly knowing. “Simon Levanian is dead, isn’t he? He tried to use you in a spell, and you destroyed him. And what about the convoy men you killed in the mountains?”

  “The drovers’ deaths were an accident! I tried to take only from animals when I cast to divert the avalanche from our convoy. And I had to cast—if I hadn’t, the slide would have killed hundreds.” Yet Kiran couldn’t meet Stevannes’s gaze. Harken’s gentle, weathered face still haunted his dreams, accompanied by the shadowed figures of the drovers Kiran hadn’t known.

  “So you claim,” Stevannes said. “Do you think a handful of feeble excuses for your murders are enough to make us forget who you truly are?”

  Kiran flinched. Ever since the Council had spared his life, he’d cherished the hope that one day the Alathians’ distrust of him would soften. That they’d stop seeing him as a threat, and allow him the time and materials he’d need to discover some means of dissolving his mark-bond. Yet if Stevannes’s attitude was any indication, that day would be years in coming—if it ever did.

  “Enough, Stevannes.” Lena’s voice was colder than he’d ever heard it. “I will not warn you again.”

  Stevannes drew himself up. “Forgive me, First Lieutenant. I merely wished to clarify the point.” He thrust the opened letter at her. “Tell Captain Martennan I will indeed search the Parvyi treatises for—” He stopped, his head tilting.

  The floorboards under Kiran’s feet shivered. Chalk rolled along the tabletop to fetch up against his slate as the tremor subsided.

  Stevannes dropped the letter and knelt to place his hands on the floor. Lena mirrored the movement, frowning. Kiran put his own hand on the table and strained his inner senses, but felt nothing beyond the dissonant throb of the block on his power.

  “Another tremor.” The disdain had vanished from Stevannes’ voice.

  “Go,” Lena said. “I’ll check.”

  “Be certain.” Stevannes stood and left without a backward glance.

  “Lena? Another tremor—there’ve been others?” Kiran hadn’t noticed any, but the quake had been so swift and subtle. Locked in concentration on his spell diagram, he might easily have missed it.

  Lena approached, close enough he could have counted the smattering of dark freckles that marked her nose and cheeks. She reached for his temples. He shied away.

  “What are you—”

  “Kiran. This is necessary.” She reached again.

  Reluctantly, Kiran held his ground. Her hands settled lightly on his skin. A slender thread of power snaked through his head, swift and shining as quicksilver.

  “My apologies.” Lena stepped back. “I needed to examine your binding.”

  “You think the tremor was my doing?” The words came out sharper than Kiran had intended, but the notion was so ridiculous. From the moment the Council had bound him, he’d been unable to use his magic for anything but passive reading of charms, living day and night with the constriction of their spell flaying his inner senses raw.

  A faint frown creased her forehead. “I do not.”

  “But others do, and not just Stevannes.” Kiran’s hands clenched. “Isn’t it enough that you keep me bound like this? That I’ve done everything the Council has asked?”

  “The Council is entrusted with the safety of Alathia,” Lena said coolly. “Do you truly think their caution with you is unreasonable?”

  Kiran didn’t answer, his attention caught by Stevannes’s still-active spell. The shimmer above the sigil had taken on a sickly gray tinge, mottled by holes with dark, crackling edges. Dread coalesced in Kiran’s chest. He pointed at the spell.

  “If that represents your border wards…it’s Ruslan, isn’t it? He’s casting against A
lathia, and your wards are failing.” He’d known this day would come. But so soon—he’d thought Ruslan would need more time to analyze the ward patterns. For all Ruslan’s hot temper, he was far too clever to cast against an enemy in haste. He’d waited twenty years to strike down Simon Levanian, until Kiran had unwittingly presented him with the perfect opportunity. Kiran hadn’t dared hope for nearly that length of time before Ruslan moved against the Council, but he had thought he’d gained a few seasons’ grace.

  “Our wards hold.” Lena passed a hand over the sigil on Stevannes’s table. The gray shimmer vanished. “Stevannes’s spell showed…merely a warning.” But her eyes slid aside from his, her motions abrupt as she collected Stevannes’s carved stone rods.

  “You don’t deny Ruslan is casting against you.” Return him to me, or I will tear down your country stone by stone, Ruslan had said; and the Alathians had refused him.

  Lena surveyed him, a sharp line between her brows. “There is no direct evidence of Ruslan’s involvement.”

  Kiran blinked. “What? But—”

  “I cannot say more.” Lena turned away. She thrust Simon’s charm into the warded copper chest sitting beside Stevannes’s neatly ordered stacks of treatises. “Put away your things. You’re finished here for today; I’ll escort you back to your quarters.”

  Her clipped tone said he’d learn nothing further. She must have been ordered to keep silence; and while Lena might treat him with calm kindness, she’d never disobey an order.

  Kiran’s mind raced as he picked up chalk shards with cold, fumbling fingers. No direct evidence…given the cunning Ruslan had displayed against Simon, the Alathians had to realize Ruslan’s capacity for subtlety. Yet if Ruslan cast against Alathia, why should he conceal it? The Council would suspect him regardless. Far better for Ruslan to strike openly, counting on his dark reputation to instill further fear and division within the Council.

  It didn’t make sense. Yet Kiran couldn’t shake the bleak certainty within. His reprieve from his master, brief as it had been, was over.

  * * *

  (Dev)

  I knelt amidst bedraggled reeds and thrust my hands into the chill shallows of the stream. Weariness dragged at my eyes and turned my muscles to lead. The sun had long since set; stars spattered the strip of sky visible between the black bulwarks of the cliffs. The peeping of mossfrogs echoed from the seeps, punctuated by clanks and shouted orders from the mine as crews worked to shore up the main tunnel. In the dim silver glow of Talmaddis’s magelight, the blood crusted on my hands and forearms was as dark as the grime coating my clothes. Talmaddis stood silent beside me, his shoulders slumped, as I scrubbed gore from my skin.

  Jathon’s idea had worked. The powder charges I’d eased down the airshaft had blasted through the back side of the cave-in. The shaft wasn’t large enough for a man to pass, but it allowed enough good air through to keep the miners who’d survived the initial collapse alive until a crew of mages from the Watch finally showed up.

  I’d hoped for another chance to slip away, but Jathon kept me dangling from pitons beside the airshaft to relay messages to the trapped men until the mages managed to create a narrow passageway through the cave-in. The effort of keeping the tunnel stable and the air breathable apparently took all their concentration; they left it to the rest of us to evacuate the injured. I’d spent the rest of the day climbing through rubble under Talmaddis’s supervision, seeking those survivors too badly hurt to make their own way out.

  I grimaced and scraped harder at my fingers. Talmaddis had given me bloodfreeze and skinseal charms, but even so, I’d lost count of the men who died before I could lever them free.

  I’d seen my dead mentor Sethan in every gray, pain-wracked face. Splintered bone gleaming in the pitiless glare of high altitude sun, blood pouring from Sethan’s nose and mouth as I screamed curses and shoved at the boulder pinning him… I yanked my hands from the river.

  “That scut-man, the one whose crushed leg I had to sever—will he live?” The miner had looked as young as Kiran, somewhere in his late teens. His screams had dwindled into ragged croaks as I’d sawed through the flesh of his pulped leg. Thank Khalmet, he’d fainted before I had to drag him out the crack I’d slithered through to reach him.

  “He may.” Talmaddis sounded as tired as I felt, though he no longer looked so haggard as he had in the immediate aftermath of the quake. His rings were still black, but he’d sparked the magelight easily enough. I took that as a warning. He might not have the full strength of his magic back yet, but he’d need only a trickle to deal with an untalented man like me. “Captain Jevarrdanos brought a full supply of herbs and elixirs, and several among his Watch have made extensive study of healing spells. If anyone can save a man from wound fever, they can.”

  I swiped my hands dry on my pants, uncaring of the grimy cloth. Coal muck I could live with, now I’d consigned the dead men’s blood to the river. “If he’s not dead by the time they bother with a mere scut-man.”

  “This isn’t Ninavel.” Talmaddis’s voice gained an edge. “Those worst injured will be treated first, regardless of their status.”

  “Yeah? If the Watch is so concerned for the injured, how come you’re still breathing down my neck instead of helping cast healing spells?” I pointed at the distant lantern-lit bulk of the camp’s mess hall, which now served as a makeshift infirmary.

  “Because I’m not an idiot.” A brief, sardonic smile touched Talmaddis’s mouth. “You think I haven’t sensed that glowlight charm you’ve got stuffed down your sock? Admit it: you have some ill-conceived plan to run.”

  My heart jolted. I stood, carefully casual. “No harm in carrying a perfectly legal charm in case I get sent on an errand in the tunnels. I just don’t want it stolen off me. I share barracks with criminals, you know.”

  “Ah.” Talmaddis’s tone made it clear he didn’t buy that for an instant. “Well, consider my presence as an appeal to your better judgment. A clever man like yourself must realize the dangers of venturing outside our protection. Ruslan Khaveirin bears you no love, and you well know the torment a blood mage can inflict.”

  Yeah, Ruslan was a vengeful, sadistic bastard. Yet Kiran had once said, He thinks of untalented men as tools to be used or cast aside, not enemies worthy of attention. It was Kiran he’d shatter the world to reclaim, not me. With all Ruslan’s attention focused on tearing down Alathia’s wards, I figured I’d stand a fair chance of surviving a return to Arkennland, so long as I was quiet about it. Hell, I’d probably be safer there than here, if the day’s quake was any indication.

  “After today, I’m not overly impressed with your protection,” I told Talmaddis.

  “Even after I saved your life twice? You’re a hard man to please,” Talmaddis said dryly.

  I winced, remembering my fall, and the plummeting pullwheel station. “Right. Uh. Thanks for that.”

  “You can thank me by refraining from anything foolish.” Talmaddis passed his hands over his face. “Especially tonight. I warn you, I won’t be in a forgiving mood if I’m roused from my bed to drag you back to camp.”

  “Don’t worry,” I told him, truthfully. “I’m not even sure I can make it back to the barracks.” Better anyway to wait until the latest crew of mages returned to Tamanath before I tried again for some kalumite, no matter how frustrated the delay left me. Far easier to fox one mage than a horde of them.

  “Nevertheless, you’ll understand if I insist you hand over that glowlight charm.” Talmaddis stuck out a hand.

  “You want it, it’s yours.” Copper wasn’t hard to come by, not with half the chipping crews wearing the weak little glowlight and sharpening charms considered legal here. I slapped the charm into his waiting palm. “Trust me, all I want right now is sleep. Stand over my cot all night if you like, so long as you don’t wake me ’til the day bell rings.”

  I moved for the barracks, but Talmaddis gripped my shoulder. “Hold a moment.”

  A magelight bobbed toward us over th
e mudflats. As it got closer, the holder proved to be the scar-faced female mage I’d seen before. Mud smeared her uniform and her graying hair was fraying loose from its braid, but her walk remained as rigidly precise as a soldier on a parade ground. She dipped in a perfunctory bow.

  “Talmaddis, we’ve received orders from the Council.” She brandished the jeweled gold band of a message charm at him. “Captain Jevardanos and the others are to remain and assist in returning the mine to normal operations, but you and I are to take him”—she jerked her head at me—“back to Tamanath, without delay.” She shifted to face me, and rattled off, “Devan na soliin, the Council wishes to review your sentence in the light of your assistance in the rescue effort.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I snarled. I wasn’t so dumb as to believe that little campfire tale. With Ruslan clawing at their door, the Council surely wanted both me and Kiran right to hand. Shaikar take the Council! Planning a getaway from the mine had been tricky enough, but in Tamanath I’d be buried up to my ears in mages and wards. Though in Tamanath I might get to see Kiran. Maybe I could help him, find some way to ensure the Council didn’t throw him to Ruslan to save their asses…I squelched the thought. Best thing I could do for Kiran was to escape the Council’s clutches so they couldn’t use me as leverage anymore.

  I rounded on Talmaddis. “Can’t I get a few hours sleep before you two spell me off to Tamanath?” I needed a chance to think. My brain felt like cold sludge. My only certainty was that I’d never escape the Watch in the heart of their power.

  “Unfortunately, we won’t be returning via translocation spell.” Talmaddis sounded wearier than ever. “A spell of that magnitude requires far too much power to be cast here. We’ll have to travel overland. So yes, I think it wise to get some sleep before leaping on a horse.”

  I perked up as I recalled the maps I’d seen of Alathia. Tamanath was some ten days’ ride from the Cheltman mines, along a road that traveled a maze of sandstone gorges and verdant forest, and passed within a few miles of the border gate at Loras. Maybe I wasn’t so screwed as I’d thought. Even mages had to sleep sometime, and where there was sandstone, there was kalumite.