Scourge

by Gail Z. Martin

  “If Rigan’s a witch, he could have fought beside us,” Calfon said.

  “And brought the guards down on our heads,” Corran said, his voice strained by tiredness. “He’s new to magic. He hasn’t yet learned to control his powers. That’s what made him sick.”

  “Back off, Calfon,” Trent said. “We can talk about this later. Corran’s had a bad night. We could all use some rest. It’s thanks to Rigan we’re safe.”

  “We need a plan,” Calfon replied.

  “Yep,” Corran agreed. “And you’re welcome to stay up talking about it. But I’m going to go sit in Rigan’s room until he wakes. I’ll see you in the morning—or whatever counts for it down here.”

  He walked back to the small bedroom, and found Aiden next to Rigan’s bed.

  “He’s doing better,” Aiden assured him. “He’ll wake soon, once he’s ready.”

  “How many threads are in a soul?” Corran blurted out the question that had been worrying him since his brother’s collapse in the workshop.

  “No one knows. Maybe it’s different for everyone. Souls can’t really be unwoven; it’s just a phrase, a way to picture something that can’t be seen.”

  “So there’s a limited number of times he can do a working like the one he did last night, but no way to know how many?” If that’s how magic actually works, it’s a fool’s bargain.

  “No set number, not that I’ve ever read.”

  “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. I’m glad we could tell Kell goodbye. But not if it costs me Rigan, too.”

  “Your brother has talent, and the bargain you made enhanced that. Right now, we won’t know his limits until he hits them.” Aiden held out his hand a few inches above Rigan’s chest. “He’s regaining his strength.”

  “What, exactly, is happening in this trance he’s in?”

  “Elinor and I are sustaining him,” Aiden replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “We’re contributing a little of our own energy and magic to bring him back, give him strength.”

  “Bring him back? From where?”

  “The edge. A witch can spend so much of his own life energy that he runs out. The body remains, might even function, but the witch’s essence is gone. Rigan was close to that edge.”

  Corran watched his brother’s chest rise and fall, and felt for a pulse, reassuring himself. He sat on the floor next to the cot, wondering how long it had been since they left the workshop. Several candlemarks, at least. Maybe half a day. Probably light outside by now. How much of Wrighton is burning? And did the guards burn the shop because of Kell, or Rigan, or me? Gods, we’ve made a mess of things.

  Chapter Thirty

  RIGAN WOKE SLOWLY. Pain came first—a dull, bone-deep ache. Still, less pain than before, and breathing came easier, too. He heard a hum of voices in the distance. Their presence comforted him, letting him know he was not alone in the dark. The darkness rolled in and out like the tide, pulling him under and lifting him back up. Rigan did not fight it.

  Gradually, the black waves subsided, and as they drew back, he came to himself. He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. Guttering candles in the lanterns cast wildly flickering shadows across the walls.

  “Rigan?” Corran’s voice cut through the last of the fog. “How… long?” The words felt like ash in his dry mouth. Corran lifted him up and pressed a cup against his lips. “Seems like forever. Can’t tell time in this damned place. Probably overnight. How do you feel?”

  It all came crashing back—Kell’s savaged body; the fight in the warehouse; the cemetery and the oath to Eshtamon; fleeing the guards with the city burning behind them. He swallowed hard. “Tired. But I don’t think I’m dying anymore.”

  Corran’s hand tightened on his arm. “Aiden says it was too damn close.”

  “I remember getting to the witches’ house, finding the bodies— with Aiden and Elinor alive—then nothing after that,” Rigan said.

  Corran filled him in on what had happened. “Aiden said he’d tell us about what happened with the witches once you were awake,” he concluded.

  Rigan was quiet for a few moments. “I’m not sure how long we can stay here.”

  “Calfon had some opinions on that last night. I put him off until I knew you were going to be all right.”

  Rigan wondered if he looked as spent as he felt, and from the worry he saw in his brother’s expression, gathered that was the case. They both looked up as Aiden entered.

  “Good to see you awake,” he said, with a nod to Rigan. “Feeling better?”

  “Yeah. Thanks for fixing me up.”

  “Thank Elinor and Polly—they took the lot of us in,” Aiden replied. He knelt beside Rigan’s cot and passed a hand over his body, eyes closed. Finally, he opened his eyes. “Better.”

  “There wasn’t much room for ‘worse,’” Rigan said.

  “Aiden, you said you’d tell us what happened,” Corran prompted. “If there’s someone out there after Rigan—besides the guards and the witch finders—we need to know about it.”

  Aiden swallowed hard and sat down on the floor. “Damian and Alton,” he said in a tight voice. Rigan stared at Aiden in disappointment, if not quite shock.

  “Damian?”

  Aiden had a sick look on his face. “I didn’t want to believe it, either. Maybe if I’d let myself put the pieces together sooner, I could have stopped it then, but I just didn’t think… I have a touch of foresight, but it’s not consistent. It doesn’t always come to me when I need it to, but sometimes it does.” He glanced at Rigan. “It’s how I knew to come to your workshop the night you almost died. How I was able to meet you halfway when you needed me to save Corran. It’s a skill that I never revealed to Damian, or any of the others. I’m not sure when I stopped trusting Damian,” Aiden admitted. “I never really liked Alton. He was a sanctimonious prick.”

  He sighed and looked down. “Maybe it was because Damian always seemed to have a reason to be going Above. None of the rest of us went more than we had to. After all, we’d gone to live Below for a reason.”

  “Do you know where Damian and Alton went after they killed the others?” Rigan asked. Corran glanced at his brother, hearing an edge in his voice he had only heard once before—in the barn where Rigan had killed Kell’s tormentor. A whisper of cold slithered down Corran’s back at the hard glint in his brother’s eyes.

  “No. I don’t think they stayed Below,” Aiden replied. “But I’d better not see them again.”

  “Why did they do it?” Corran asked. “I don’t know anything about magic, but why would they turn on their own?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been asking myself that, and I just don’t know. But I did find out something else that I didn’t have time to tell anyone before… everything happened.”

  “What’s that?” Corran asked.

  “I’m certain that magic is behind at least some of the monster attacks,” Rigan said. “I’ve been gathering evidence for a while now, and there’s no doubt in my mind—someone very powerful is summoning the monsters, and using them to keep the rest of us under control.”

  “How do you know this?” the healer asked.

  “I can hear the confessions of the dead,” Rigan replied. “And sometimes, the dead understand things after they’ve crossed over that they didn’t realize before. Perspective, I guess. Things the ghosts said to me started to add up, made me wonder whether the monsters weren’t being controlled somehow.”

  “You think magic is involved?” Aiden said.

  “Oh, I think monsters have always been present. Every old book I could get my hands on in the sanctuary’s library talks about them. But there were hints, things said in riddles and ideas in between the lines that made me suspect that sometimes, witches with the right kind of power can summon such creatures and make them do their bidding. And I think it’s got something to do with the Balance.”

  Corran looked up sharply and frowned. “Why?”

  “Something a Wanderer woma
n said to me made me wonder, and one of the ghosts told me more,” Rigan replied. “What everyone we know talks about—the idea of good balancing out bad—I don’t think that’s it at all. If I’ve put the pieces together right, someone powerful, important—the Lord Mayor, someone like that—is using blood magic, and all the death and pain caused by the monsters and guards feeds his power. And that… that blood magic has to be accounted for—balanced. I think that’s what the Balance really is. But I think they’ve stepped over a line, tipped the Balance somehow, and that led to problems, like more vengeful ghosts. I suspect whoever it is—and his blood witch—are drawing more out than they can put in themselves, and if it weren’t for the killing and the fear, they’d lose control over the magic. Hence the monsters.”

  “Sweet Eshtamon,” Corran murmured.

  “Did Damian know what you were researching?” Aiden asked.

  Guilt glinted in Rigan’s eyes. “I asked Baker about the monsters, and she told me what she knew. Later on, I brought it up with Damian, but something about his reaction made me drop it. I didn’t completely trust him, so I never brought it up again.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  Rigan shrugged. “Maybe a few weeks. No more than that.”

  “That’s when some of the old books went missing. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but I went looking for some rituals and healing lore, and several of the manuscripts were gone. I just thought one of the others had borrowed them for a working. Now I’m wondering if your questions made Damian nervous and he didn’t want you to find what you were looking for.”

  “Is it true?” Rigan turned to meet Aiden’s gaze. “Can witches summon and bind monsters?”

  “I don’t know.” Aiden’s voice was raw and honest. “I’m just a healer, with a little foresight that’s none too reliable. I can’t do the big magic. None of the witches Below are true mages. More than a hedge witch, less than a wizard—a lot less. Still enough to be worth a noose Above.”

  “Was there a bargain, that no monsters would come Below if the witches didn’t go Above?” Corran asked, remembering something Rigan had said.

  “I’ve always suspected it,” Aiden replied. “It was too clean a coincidence without some kind of deal. We stayed Below, didn’t meddle, didn’t get the in the way, and in exchange, the guards left Below alone.”

  “And so do the monsters. Which suggests they go where they’re told,” Rigan said.

  “Yeah. I never thought about it, but that would make sense.”

  “So why break the deal now?” Corran mused. “If the witches of Below weren’t powerful enough to pose a threat, why murder them?”

  “Maybe whoever is summoning the monsters didn’t want to take a chance,” Rigan said. “Maybe the stakes have changed, and the mage didn’t want to risk having his plans upended. Maybe we became a threat to the Balance.”

  Rigan looked from Aiden to Corran. “If that’s true, staying Below isn’t safe for us—any of us. If the deal is broken, then we’re not safe from guards or monsters—and Damian might come back to finish what he started.”

  “We’re safer here than Above, at least for a while,” Corran countered. “If the monsters come, let them. We’ll hunt them, make ourselves useful. And if you’re right,” he added, looking from Rigan to Aiden, “then we need to find the sons of bitches who are summoning the monsters and make them pay. Make it end.”

  “That kind of magic is rare—and expensive,” Aiden said. “If your guess is right, Rigan, we could be going up against the Lord Mayor—and powerful witches.”

  “That might explain why the Lord Mayor is so against witches that don’t work for him—or Wanderers,” Corran mused. “He’s not going to want to risk any sort of opposition.”

  Rigan looked to Aiden. “We need to know more about what kind of magic it takes to summon the monsters. If the books here are missing, can we find more outside the city walls?”

  Aiden considered for a moment, frowning. “Maybe,” he said. “There are monasteries with libraries. We might be able to find something there.”

  “Are you crazy?” Corran challenged. “Leaving Ravenwood is far too dangerous.”

  “What if we could end this?” Rigan said, meeting Corran’s gaze. “We sold our souls to the god of vengeance. He made us his champions.”

  “I figured that was more of an honorary title.”

  “Don’t think so—I’m still alive.”

  Corran flinched. “All right,” he said, lifting his hands in a placating gesture. “Let’s just say that we didn’t imagine the whole thing, that Eshtamon really came, really gave us a… calling.” He passed a hand over his face. “Gods, I can’t believe I’m saying this.”

  “You can’t doubt it, Corran,” Rigan said. “We want to avenge Kell, and we promised vengeance for the Wanderers, too. If we can stop whoever’s controlling the monsters, we’ll have what we asked for.”

  “Big task for two people, don’t you think?”

  “No one said you had to do it on your own.” They turned to look at Aiden, and then Corran’s gaze traveled beyond the healer to see Elinor and Trent standing in the doorway. He wondered how much they had heard, until he saw the look of quiet determination in their eyes.

  “We’re in this to the hilt now,” Trent said. “We’ve been talking, and we’ve agreed: we’re staying. We’ll clean out the back rooms, hunker down until we can figure out a plan. And in the meantime, if the monsters start coming Below now that the witches are gone, we’ll do what we’ve been doing—kill the miserable bastards.”

  “I can live with that,” Corran said. He glanced at Rigan. “We both can.”

  “I’m not a fighter, but it sounds like you could use a healer,” Aiden volunteered. “If we can find enough old books and manuscripts, we stand a good chance of figuring out how to fight Damian and Alton when they show up again, and take down whoever’s behind this.”

  “Where are you going to find books like that?” Trent asked.

  “Those monasteries I mentioned? They were abandoned after the League seized them. They belonged to the Elder Gods, and the League wanted allegiance given to the Guild gods,” Aiden said. “They left the temples here in the city—must have feared a revolt if they tore them down—but regular people didn’t care as much about the monasteries. Some of them are in the city, but most are outside the wall. I’m guessing the monks who lived there fled or were killed. The League left them to rot. The monasteries outside the wall are our best bet. Once you’re feeling better, I say we go do some looting for the cause.”

  “I know a place you can start.”

  Polly had joined them. She looked uncomfortable, and covered her discomfort with defiance. Oh, yeah, she and Kell would have made a good pair, Corran thought, his heart clenching. “What kind of place?”

  Polly managed a smug grin. “I’ve been mapping the ruined parts of Below. Something to do, you know? There are whole areas where no one goes, no one lives. It’s not real… safe. The buildings are in bad shape. Roofs caved in, floors rotted. I was exploring one day and I found a library in what’s left of one of the buildings. Most of the shelves were empty, but one whole section was blocked with wood and rubble, so there might be something that got left behind. I left everything where I found it, but I can take you back there.”

  “As soon as I’m back on my feet,” Rigan promised.

  “I’ll go with you,” Aiden replied. “And in the meantime, I want to go back to the witch house and take any books Damian left behind. He might have missed something.”

  “Count me in,” Elinor added. “Don’t know that I’d be much good in a fight, but there’s strength in numbers.”

  “It’s a start,” Corran said, meeting Trent’s gaze. “More than we’d have Above.”

  And maybe, just maybe, a chance.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  A WEEK LATER, monsters came Below.

  “They’re lida,” Calfon reported to the group gathered in the bare living spa
ce they had cleared for themselves behind Elinor and Polly’s rooms.

  They were sheltered and relatively safe. Aiden, Polly, and Elinor taught them the basics on how to survive Below, and so far, the Lord Mayor’s guards had been mercifully absent, as had Damian and Alton. Corran was happy for any break they got.

  “They’re coming in through the sewers,” Trent added. “Below connects through drains, sewers, even some chimneys. That’s how we get enough fresh air down here to keep from suffocating. But if the air can get out—”

  “Other things can get in,” Corran supplied.

  Trent nodded. “The best way I can describe lida is maggots the size of a man’s arm. They ooze a poison that breaks down skin, and they swarm, eating their prey in layers as the poison dissolves muscle until there’s nothing left but bone. Oh, and they move fast and attack in groups—hundreds at a time.”

  Illir looked queasy. “That’s just wonderful.”

  Calfon grimaced. “If you go down under a dozen of them, they can strip skin from bone in minutes.”

  Corran shuddered, and he saw the same reaction from the others.

  “What kills them?”

  “Fire, for certain,” Calfon replied.

  “They don’t like salt, but it won’t kill them,” Ross added. “Burning and crushing are our best bets. Hacking them up is tricky—do it wrong and you just make more of them.”

  “Illir and Dilin scouted the area where the lida were sighted,”

  Calfon continued. “We’re pretty sure they’re coming in through the drains, up from the harbor. There are catch basins beneath the grates in the streets Above. They empty into deeper drains that run down to the harbor. That’s where the lida are.”

  “What weapons do we use?” Trent asked.

  Calfon gave a wicked grin and held up a pottery oil lantern, about the size of an apple. “Got us plenty of these and a good bit of oil.

  We pair up, go into the drains, and when we find the lida, lay down a wide patch of oil. Lure the lida into the oil, then light the lamps and hurl them, to set the oil on fire. Poof!” he said, clapping his hands. “Cooked lida.”