Ink Mage

by Victor Gischler

  Kork took a torch from the hallway bracket and handed it to Rina. “Hold this.”

  He opened the door, and they entered the jailer’s room. It was squalid. A chair and a narrow bunk.

  Kork heaved the bunk aside, knelt and brushed dust off the floor until he found a perfectly round stone about the side of a grapefruit. He used the hilt of his sword to push down hard, and with a quiet scraping sound, the stone lowered into the floor. More sounds, clunks and scraping, and a panel of stones behind the bunk swung inward. The secret doorway was barely four feet high. Kork ducked his head and entered.

  A moment later he reappeared and gestured to Rina. “Come on.”

  She followed him into the secret passage. He pulled a lever and the doorway closed behind them. In the flickering torchlight, she saw a man-made passage, angling gently downward. He gestured her to follow.

  “Kork?”

  “Yes?”

  “Where … Where were you?” She heard the tremble in her voice, steadied herself.

  “Giffen,” Kork said. “He found me, told me your father wanted me to inspect the defenses. I’m sorry, Rina. Sorry I wasn’t there. Sorry I failed you.”

  “No.” She sniffed. “But if you’d been another minute …” She gulped breath, trying to hold back a sob.

  “Don’t talk now,” he said. “We need to hurry.”

  She trudged after him for what seemed like hours. The tunnel leveled off and soon turned into a natural cavern. The floor grew slick, a sudden stench hitting her. Rina realized with revulsion that the castle’s sewage system must feed into these tunnels.

  She tried not to think about it, putting one foot in front of the other, but it became ankle deep. She gagged, turned her head and retched.

  “Come,” Kork said. “We’re nearly out.”

  She convulsed and vomited again, giving up some meal she didn’t even remember eating, consumed by a different person, living another life. She stumbled, shivering and light-headed, through the filth, felt Kork lift her by the elbow.

  A hundred more steps and then Kork tossed the torch into the watery sewage at their feet and it sputtered out. Before Rina could ask why he’d plunged them into darkness, she saw the light at the end. They’d come to the tunnel’s exit.

  They marched toward the blur of light and thirty seconds later found themselves outside, ankle-deep in the snow. The cold seeped into her wet, thin slippers immediately. She shivered, the icy wind piercing her thin shift. As if it had been waiting for them, a steady snowfall began. The sky was a dark gray, almost like night.

  She fell to her knees. The snow was bitterly cold but clean. She grabbed a handful of it, rubbed it on her lips, rubbed more on her tongue to remove the acid taste of vomit. She tried to stand, couldn’t, looked up blankly at her bodyguard.

  Kork lifted her again, took off his blood-splattered cloak and draped it around her.

  The tunnel had come out in a ravine below Klaar. She turned to look back. Pillars of smoke rose here and there from the city.

  “Some still fight, I think,” Kork said.

  “Can they win?” Rina asked. “Can they take the city back?”

  “No.”

  She began to cry. “Kork, they … Mother.… Father …”

  He took her shoulders in his enormous hands. “Look at me.”

  Rina looked up at him, his face hazy through her hot tears.

  “You are still alive,” Kork said. “Many are dead, but not you. I live for one thing. To see to your safety. That is my honor oath to your father, an oath that endures even after his death. But I need help.”

  “Where can we get help out here?” Rina asked. “It’s … impossible.”

  “There is the old mage.”

  “The … what?”

  Rina shivered almost uncontrollably now, teeth chattering. She was tired and bloody. She tried to recall some faint memory, something about an old court mage, but her brain wouldn’t work. She was exhausted. “What are you talking about? What mage? Where?”

  Kork turned, pointed to the rocky, snow-capped mountain that loomed over them, rising into dark clouds. “There.”

  EPISODE TWO

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Alem dug himself deeper into the hay of the stable loft, the screams of the dying loud and clear in the street just outside. Below him, the horses snorted and fidgeted. They were well trained and not easily spooked, but none had heard such fierce fighting in the streets of Klaar since … well, it had never been heard.

  Somehow the enemy had come across the Long Bridge. The gates had been opened.

  A grizzled veteran had shoved a dull infantryman’s axe into Alem’s hands along with a wooden shield and pointed Alem toward the battle. If an officer hadn’t urgently demanded a horse, Alem would now lie at the bottom of a pile of bodies. He’d sprinted through the chaos, back to the stable and had frantically saddled a sturdy gelding. He’d returned to find the officer and his entire platoon slain, the buildings along the cobblestone street in flames.

  So Alem had done the only thing he could think of. He had run back to the stable and hidden. And there was no point feeling like a coward. He was no warrior, and anyway, the city was hopelessly and obviously lost.

  Now he held his breath under the hay as the stable door creaked open. But instead of Perranese soldiers, it was a man of Klaar who entered, an ordinary soldier in chainmail and a simple bowl helm. A bland man of medium height, a broad, lazy face, brown hair curling from under the rim of the helm.

  Alem allowed himself the fleeting hope that by some miracle the Klaar military had rallied and turned back the invaders. The thought that this soldier had come to tell those in hiding that it was safe to come out now turned laughable as Alem watched the soldier toss aside his armor and livery.

  The solider was a deserter and Alem suddenly felt an irrational pang of disgust. Okay, yeah, I’m hiding under a pile of hay, but this guy is supposed to be a professional.

  Alem leaned out over the edge of the loft. “What are you doing?”

  The soldier yelped and flinched, turned abruptly. “You startled the shit out of me. Who the hell are you?”

  “Shouldn’t you be fighting the battle?” Alem said.

  “Battle?” The soldier snorted. “That’s no battle, kid. That’s a fucking slaughter, and running out there and taking a spear in the gut won’t change anything. So if it’s all the same to you, I resign.”

  Alem bristled at the word kid. And he was pretty sure you couldn’t just resign from the army whenever you felt like it.

  On the other hand, the man didn’t want to die, and Alem could understand that.

  “What’s your name?” Alem asked.

  “Tosh.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “Bad,” Tosh said. “I think somebody must have opened the gates from the inside. They came pouring across the Long Bridge and there was no stopping them. I threw my spear, but I didn’t even see where it landed.” He shrugged. “Next I knew they were all over the walls.”

  “How many did you kill?”

  “How many did I—?” Tosh shook his head, rolled his eyes. “Look, kid, I didn’t kill anyone. A bunch of us pressed through a mob of those foreigners trying to get off the wall and retreat back to the keep. I took a swipe at one of the bastards, but he deflected me. Half the time I didn’t know if the man behind me was one of ours or one of theirs. Next I know, half my guys are dead and we’re just running, okay? That’s when I had the thought maybe I could come here and grab a horse, maybe ride for it. But there’s no way I’d make it to one of the gates.”

  Alem frowned. If Tosh was a typical example of the Klaarian army it was no wonder the city was lost.

  Tosh correctly interpreted the look on Alem’s face. “Whatever glorious nonsense you’ve heard about war, just forget it. It’s all screaming and confusion and trying not to shit yourself.”

  Alem considered his brief sprint through the chaos when the officer had sent him for a horse. That was in th
e early part of the battle, before things had gone from bad to worse. Alem imagined himself in Tosh’s position, with death coming at him from every direction. Okay, so maybe I shouldn’t judge the man.

  Still, it would have been nice to think his countrymen had put up some kind of fight.

  And that’s when Alem started to feel it in his gut. What had been simple fear before was now a cold feeling of dread as he realized the battle and the slaughter in the streets of Klaar was only the beginning. For the survivors there would be … what? Alem didn’t know, and surprisingly the unknown future like a blank slate in front of him was terrifying. Would the conquerors enslave the survivors? Torture them? Or maybe a stable boy was too unimportant to even be noticed. Maybe he’d wake up in the morning, muck out the stalls, feed and water the horses as usual, the new masters no different from the old.

  But he wouldn’t know until it was happening to him, and by then it would be too late.

  In a stab of panic, he seized on Tosh’s scheme to steal a horse and ride out fast. His grandmother lived down in the valley. He could hide there. Most of the lowland villages had evacuated to the imagined safety of the city walls, but Alem knew his grandmother wouldn’t budge. She was stubborn and would die on her own land, and anyway she was too old to make the climb up the mountain road. Or at least that’s what she would claim. Maybe he could get lucky, ride past all the Perranese warriors before they could …

  The door to the stable slowly creaked open again.

  Alem quickly retreated back into the hay, gestured for Tosh to get out of sight, but the deserter was already in motion, frantically trying to find a good hiding place.

  Tosh backed against the wall where reins and harness hung, grabbed a horse blanket off a peg and tossed it over himself. He squatted next to a barrel.

  Four Perranese warriors strode into the stable. Alem watched them though an opening in the hay. Even their most casual movements seemed precise and catlike. With swords and spears, they would make a lethal fighting force. Klaar had never really had a chance once the gates had been thrown wide.

  One of the Perranese pointed at the horses, gibbered in his foreign tongue to the others who nodded along. Alem’s heart sank. Of course; they’d just come across the ocean, and horses would be in short supply. They’d take these for their own use and with them Alem’s idea to ride out of town.

  The warrior in charge motioned to the other three, barking orders in his quick, clipped language. They went to the stalls and picked out three horses, all large stallions, and led them out of the stable.

  That meant the gelding Alem had selected for the officer was still in the end stall. Still saddled.

  When the other three left, the remaining Perranese turned away from Alem, reached under his scale mail skirt. A second later, Alem heard the stream of urine splashing against the stable wall.

  Okay, he’ll finish pissing, and when he leaves I’ll hop on the gelding and make a run for it.

  The warrior finished, turned back to the stable door. Paused.

  He looked down at Tosh’s discarded chainmail on the ground.

  Alem’s stomach lurched. Oh … no.

  The warrior gripped the hilt of his sword, turning his head slowly to scan the stable. His demeanor had changed, like a wire now pulled tight. Alem held his breath. Silence fell heavily over the stable, broken by one of the horses snorting. The warrior slowly drew his sword from the sheath.

  The hiss of metal made Tosh flinch beneath the horse blanket. Not much, just the barest hint of movement, but it was enough. The warrior lifted the sword over his head, walked deliberately toward Tosh’s hiding spot.

  If Alem had been given ample time to plan his next move, it would never have occurred to him to rise from his hiding place under the hay and leap from the loft at the Perranese warrior below.

  But that’s exactly what he did.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Rina could no longer feel her feet. Limbs cold and heavy. She knew she was still moving forward by the sound of snow crunch. Only Kork kept her from dropping where she stood, lying down in the snow, and falling asleep forever. She was dead on her feet, and it was almost a blessing. Little energy was left to think of the horror that was only a few hours old. Her fingers ached holding Kork’s cloak closed in front of her. She would never be warm again.

  And if she did sprawl in the snow to surrender to sleep, a dim awareness told her Kork would simply heave her over his shoulder and keep climbing the mountain. A shred of pride in her wouldn’t allow that. The man had done so much for her already. He shouldn’t have to carry her too.

  But when she slowed, began to drift, she’d feel Kork’s large hand take her by the elbow, pull her along until she was able to tap into some hidden well of strength.

  The snow fell harder.

  They climbed higher.

  She looked back. Klaar was far below them. Smoke still rose in parts of the city, but it didn’t seem as bad. Maybe the fighting was over. Not that it mattered. Klaar belonged to the Perranese now.

  Rina couldn’t feel anything about that. She was too numb.

  “Come.” Kork had her by the elbow again.

  Rina realized she’d stopped hiking, had been staring unblinking at the city below. She allowed herself to be led, trudging with a rhythm like a dirge through the snow which was now knee deep. The numbness in her feet circled around to pain again, reaching up into her hips. She’d heard of trappers being caught out in blizzards, losing toes or even a foot to frostbite. I don’t care. Take my feet, my legs. Take it all.

  She turned her head to look at a low marker of gray bricks about the height of her waist. One of the top bricks displayed the seal of the Duchy of Klaar. A path marker. Of course. Kork wouldn’t lead them randomly up the mountain. He’d known the way all along, but she hadn’t seen the path so thickly covered with snow.

  There was another marker at the foot of a well-worn set of stone steps leading steeply up the rocky slope. It was very nearly invisible beneath the snow, but Rina knew what to look for now. They started up the stairs, and within minutes the muscles in her legs burned. She refused to complain, biting her lower lip to keep from groaning until she tasted her own blood.

  Up. Endlessly.

  She looked down again at Klaar but couldn’t see it. It was lost amid the thick snow flying sideways on the bitter wind.

  The stairs ended at last at the opening of a cave. Rina turned to Kork, her expression unmistakable. Really? In there?

  “The cave of the old mage,” Kork said. “He was banished by your father’s father. I don’t know why. But the Duke told me if all other hopes should fail to bring you here. He told me this only this morning. I wonder if he had a premonition that maybe the Perranese threat was more than suspected. He was right, I’m sorry to say. So I have brought you as instructed.”

  Rina gazed into the dark cavern as if mesmerized. Her father had told Kork to bring her here? “What else did he say?”

  Kork grunted.

  “Kork.”

  “He said nothing more. But he seemed … conflicted. I think he was reluctant to send you to this mage.”

  They stood a moment in the mouth of the cave. The wind howled behind them.

  Kork put a hand against the cave wall to steady himself. He slid down into a sitting position, his other hand held tight against his side. Rina looked at him. The big man was covered in blood, and for the first time it occurred to Rina some of it might be his.

  “You’re hurt.”

  Kork lifted his chin, indicating the depths of the cavern. “In there. Go.”

  “Alone?”

  “I will guard the entrance.” He drew the large sword from the scabbard on his back, set it next to him. “My wound is minor. I only need rest. You must go on.”

  She hesitated, then nodded.

  She advanced into the cave. The sound of the wind dwindled behind her. She rounded a long gradual bend, and it grew darker then lighter again, firelight glowing ahead. The cavern open
ed into a wide chamber.

  A shrunken old man sat perfectly still on a threadbare rug. He did not move, look up or open his eyes at Rina’s approach.

  The room was lit by a low, brass brazier, the flames casting misshapen shadows on the chamber walls. When the heat of it reached her, Rina almost wept. She stood, letting the warmth seep into her, not caring for the moment about the old man. Hot needles pricked her feet as they thawed. Now she did weep very softly, fat tears rolling down her cheeks and over her lips.

  Rina knelt in front of the old man, wiped away the tears with trembling fingers. She leaned closer, looking at him. She wasn’t even sure he was alive. His head was down, chin almost touching his bony chest, eyes closed. He wore a tattered and faded woolen robe of muted red. Bald. Completely clean shaven and wrinkled. He sat cross-legged, gnarled and spotted hands on his knees.

  Rina cleared her throat.

  Nothing.

  “I’m Rina Veraiin.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “I … my father …” Would names even mean anything to him? How long had he been here?

  A long pause, then the old man spoke without lifting his head. “You are Little Belly’s daughter?” His voice was like heavy stones grinding together.

  Rina searched her memory. They’d called her father Little Belly as a child because he had a little round belly. Relations would rub it and tickle him. Rina had thought the story silly at the time. She had to master herself to keep from sobbing. Her father would never tell her another story again.

  “Yes,” Rina said. “Dead now.”

  He lifted his head. Opened his eyes. One was completely clouded over, the other a clear, rich brown. Shadows played across his face, making him seem strange and sinister. “Something’s happened.”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me.”

  “The Perranese,” Rina said. “They came across the Long Bridge. Somebody opened the gates.” She stopped talking. Couldn’t bear to recount all of it. The pain was still too close.

  He nodded. “I’m surprised you are here. Little Belly must have turned out different from his father.”