The Labyrinth of Flame

by Courtney Schafer

  “Hey. We proved that you and I together can travel demon-fashion. That’s one hell of an advantage we can use. We’ll go back and make a new plan.”

  “No.” Kiran straightened. “Lena said the wards around the containment wing were the strongest the Watch can cast. Maybe that magic obscured Marten from my seeking. I’m not leaving until I’m sure he’s not here.”

  “All right, but how will you search?” Now that we were standing in the middle of the Arcanum, I doubted Kiran could cast so much as a find-me without triggering the Watch’s detection spells. We’d been counting on surprise. Even a force as organized and efficient as the Watch wasn’t instant in their response to a threat. Kiran holding off a handful of guards for a few moments was one thing. But if the Watch had time to properly mobilize, I didn’t care how strong Kiran was, he couldn’t hold for long against a hundred mages working in tandem.

  He gave me a wan grin. “How fortunate that I brought an expert in shadow work. One who doesn’t need to cast to break wards.”

  “Ha,” I said. “If you think you can tempt me with flattery and the chance to use the Taint—well, you’re dead right. Just promise me that you’ll spell us straight back to Lena if I ask it of you. The very instant I ask, with no questions or protests.” I was willing to do a little sneaking around the Arcanum, but the least whiff of things going sour and I intended to vanish. Kiran might be all fixated on saving Marten, but I wasn’t going to let that sabotage our larger goal of bringing down Ruslan.

  “I’ll do as you say,” Kiran assured me.

  “Then we’ll make a great team,” I said, grinning at him. “Now give me your hand so I can open this door.”

  * * *

  Kiran and I crept down a hallway hand in hand like kids sneaking away from a minder. Soft bars of moonlight striped the floor beneath arrow-slit windows. The shadows were black as tar, but I didn’t need my eyes. I saw with Kiran’s: a muted rainbow of quiescent wards threading the walls, clustered tight around doors and windows. Distant in a different wing was an entire array of banked coals: mages of the Watch asleep in their company barracks. A few brighter coals of alert mages moved about the Arcanum’s halls, but between Kiran’s mage-sight and my ability to break wards, evading them had been easy.

  But now we were coming up on Lena’s “containment wing”—the Council’s warded prison. In Kiran’s eyes, it was enclosed by a sun-bright, seamless wall of fire, impenetrable to his mage-sight.

  We halted at the top of a stone stairway that led straight down into the fire. My own eyes saw only pooled shadows. I squinted, looking for wardlines to shatter, but couldn’t make out anything on the stone.

  You can’t break this spell, Kiran informed me. It’s not anchored in the physical realm like a ward. I suspect there are mages inside the spell’s perimeter constantly feeding power into its pattern. Even so, the pattern is not so strong I cannot shatter it.

  I heard the echo of Ruslan in his disdainful confidence. He really thought he was that strong compared to Alathian mages. Hang on. We don’t even know if Marten’s in there. I thought you said if we got close enough then you could look, first.

  And so I will. If I’m careful in this, the mages within won’t feel me spy through the wards’ weave. He dropped into the diamond-sharp clarity he used for doing magic. I’d felt that purity of focus myself on many a climb. But to be able to jump straight into it like he could—I envied his discipline, yet I didn’t like to imagine how he’d learned it.

  Kiran reached into the fire. He did something I couldn’t follow—all I got was a sense of strain and constantly shifting balance, like a climber teetering along a dangerously delicate ledge.

  Sudden exultation rolled over me. Marten is there—look! Kiran showed me a faint spark perhaps a hundred paces away. He’s awake, not asleep or unconscious, though his ikilhia seems oddly muted. Perhaps because of the wards around his cell. Those, you can break. When I shatter the outer defenses, I’ll remove my amulet so you can use the Taint without touching me. You get Marten free of his cell while I hold off the guards. Remember, you must convince him to let me within his barriers

  You don’t ask for much. I could break wards, no problem. But even with Lena’s code-phrase, I wasn’t so sure I could convince Marten to let a blood mage in his head.

  I know your clever tongue, Kiran said.

  Just watch you don’t bring down the whole Arcanum on our heads.

  Kiran’s amused assent rippled through me before he sank back into concentration. He was holding a pattern in his head, something knotted and complex. In a glimpse of understanding, I gathered it wasn’t a spell for breaking the wards, but to cast on the mages behind them.

  He reached, and this time it wasn’t a careful trickle of magic that rose through me. A hot, violent surge set the void in my head ablaze with life. Kiran ripped off his amulet and hammered the magic straight at the fire in front of us.

  Orange flames roared up—real fire, hot and bright enough to blind. A concussion of sound knocked me backward. I would have fallen if not for Kiran’s grip on my wrist. Lightning stabbed all around us, glancing off a barrier I couldn’t see.

  The lightning died. Kiran released my wrist and ran down the stairs, already casting again. A bolt of magefire blasted open an iron door at the base of the stairwell. Kiran charged through. I raced after him.

  Four men and women in the blue and gray uniform of the Watch scrambled to block our path, their voices already raised in wild harmonies. Another turbulent rush of power leapt from me to Kiran; I felt the effort he exerted to control it, the constant struggle to restrict the flow so it wouldn’t burn us both. I should’ve been scared. Instead, my blood sang, my awareness of the world sharp and deep in a way I’d thought lost to me since my Change.

  Kiran cast the spell he’d been holding in his head. A shadowy net settled over the four mages, eating away at a lacework of light that linked them. The mages instantly diverged the harmony of their song. New light sparked between them to spear through Kiran’s shadow-spell.

  I shoved, slamming the mages one after the other into the walls. Their song broke off into yells of pain and surprise, and the light between them died. Kiran followed up the advantage, pouring more power through his spell.

  I leaped over a fallen mage and sprinted down the corridor. More flashes and yells behind me. In my head, Kiran was doing something that felt horrendously difficult, even as coal-blazes of life burst out of their distant barracks and poured toward us like angry ants.

  Ward-sealed doors lined both sides of the corridor, which dead-ended in another wall covered in obsidian wardlines. From the distance I’d estimated off Kiran’s mage-sight, Marten was in the last cell on the left. Racing past other doors to reach his, I wondered how many other poor bastards were awaiting mindburning or execution.

  I’d have to hope none deserved freedom, because I hadn’t time to give it. I skidded to a halt before Marten’s door. Both wood and stone were choked with wardlines, and I couldn’t ask Kiran for help in finding the hold-fast. The Watch was hammering him hard; his strain was increasing by the instant. I didn’t dare break his concentration.

  I scanned the lines, thinking fast. Alathia didn’t have Tainters to worry about. The mages of the Watch might not bother to obscure their hold-fasts amid trap-lines of equal width like mages did in Ninavel. The hold-fasts on Marten’s workroom door had been noticeably fatter than the other lines.

  I picked out the fattest line on the door. In Ninavel, Tainters who got too eager and struck without working out the entire ward pattern ended up dead fast.

  Kiran couldn’t protect us for long. I had to risk it.

  I struck with the invisible hammer of the Taint. Obsidian shards sprayed wide, and silver magefire boiled out of the broken wardline. I threw myself aside; flame missed me by a hairsbreadth. Fuck! That’d been the hold-fast all right, but I’d struck too far from its root.

  Still, the ward was dead and I was alive, even if a touch singed. I kic
ked open the door.

  Marten was backed against the bare stone of the cell’s far wall, gaping at me in a gratifying way. He wore only a gray tunic and trousers. His fingers were bare of rings, his black hair disheveled into a halo of spikes, his genial shopkeeper’s face not quite as round-cheeked as I recalled.

  But he recovered just as fast as he always had. “Dev. I can’t imagine what you’re doing here, but I assume the ruckus outside is thanks to Kiran? The Council bound my power; I can barely sense anything.”

  “Yeah, it’s Kiran. Holding off half the fucking Watch, so we haven’t time for a lengthy chat. You have to come with us, right now. We’ve got a plan that’ll save Alathia, but we need what you know. Lena’s with us. She said to tell you…solueti dam viol—no, damn it, solueti dallo vionna amis.”

  Marten’s brows shot upward. “Come where?”

  “Kiran learned how to translocate like Vidai could. Except it’s pretty hard on mages. You’ve got to let him in your barriers so he can shield you. We’ll take you to where Lena’s waiting east of the Whitefires.”

  Marten, the asshole, looked exasperated. “Of all the terrible timing…I can’t go with you. Not now. I’ve almost convinced Councilor Varellian into—” He checked, his black eyes abruptly wary. “Something I consider vital to Alathia’s defense. If I vanish, it will never be accomplished.”

  “I don’t care what games you’ve been playing from this cell! Ruslan destroyed Prosul Akheba, Marten. Burned it to ashes. That’ll be your cities if Ruslan gets his hands on the demons’ weapon that powers your wards.”

  Marten’s eyes widened. “You know about the wards’ source?”

  “Yes, we know! But we don’t know where it is. We’ve got to find it before Ruslan, or we’ll all be fucked.”

  Marten only shook his head. “You want me to reveal Alathia’s defenses? My oaths forbid me, and I will not break them. Tell Kiran he must find another way.”

  He was crazier even than Teo. What did vows matter when lives were at stake? But I didn’t have time to argue. Spells were raining down on Kiran, and his concentration was split in too many directions, the flow of power gushing between us threatening to escape his control.

  “I don’t give a damn what you want,” I snapped at Marten. “In Ninavel, you made me dance to your tune. Now I’m making you dance to mine.”

  I pushed at him. Not hard, not a blow, just a constant, steady push right at his face that built an invisible barrier over his nose and mouth. I’d tried this trick only once as a kid, and gotten soundly punished for it by Red Dal.

  Marten choked and slashed a hand at me. I jumped back in pure reflex, but he hadn’t lied about the Council binding his power. He clawed vainly at the air, turned red, then purple, and finally slumped against the wall, held upright only by the push I was still exerting.

  I let up. He collapsed in a heap, sucking in whooping gasps of air, his eyelids fluttering. He’d recover in moments, but for now he was groggy, barely conscious. A dark, giddy rush coursed through me. It was so good to be Tainted again instead of at the mercy of every damn mage I met. I hauled Marten up and over my shoulder—fuck, he was heavy! Too heavy for me to lift entirely with the Taint, but straining with both mind and muscles let me carry him out the door. Kiran was braced at the end of the hallway, fire all around him, facing down a crowd of mages.

  Kiran! Time to go.

  A scrap of Kiran’s attention snapped back to me. Shock and dismay ricocheted into my head. What’ve you done? He can’t let me in his barriers like this!

  His power’s bound. Break through his barriers yourself if you have to. Stumbling toward Kiran, I threw the memory of Marten’s stubbornness at him. I couldn’t make him understand. Lena can, if we get him to her.

  He can’t cast? I was counting on his help to shield his ikilhia—I don’t know if I can—ah! Kiran’s pain juddered through me, waves of red-hot needles piercing my head. The Watch was exploiting his distraction and cutting right through his defensive spellwork. And Ruslan’s binding was like strangleweed ready to coil tight, triggered by Kiran’s worry he’d do Marten harm.

  “You’re not hurting him, you’re helping him! You can protect him, I know it!” I summoned the soaring confidence the Taint brought me, the certainty that I could do anything, and forced it straight into Kiran, sweeping aside the doubt crippling him. “You promised you’d leave when I asked it. Take us now!”

  He threw on his amulet, grabbed my arm in one hand, and took Marten’s in the other. Light exploded behind my eyes. The world vanished—

  Into darkness. That same swooping rush, like tumbling off a cliff, except this time fire was leaking into my head, freezing cold fire, and Kiran was screaming, frantic—

  My feet thumped into sand. Dark shapes of boulders all around, a star-spattered sky overhead, and Lena’s startled figure before us, outlined in magelight.

  Pain savaged me. I fell, shock unstringing my muscles, my arm ripping free of Kiran’s grip.

  The pain vanished, sudden and complete. Beside me, Kiran curled in on himself, moaning—that’d been his pain I felt. And Marten—Marten was convulsing, a bloody froth leaking from his nose and a terrible, toneless keening droning from his throat.

  “Help him,” Kiran gasped at Lena. “The currents—I tried, but I couldn’t—his ikilhia shredded away so fast! I’m sorry, oh Lena, I’m sorry…”

  Lena threw herself on her knees beside Marten, already chanting. Teo sprinted up, his mouth open in dismay. He didn’t ask for explanations, just slapped his hands on Marten’s jerking body.

  “Cara!” he yelled. “My satchel, quickly!”

  Kiran curled tighter, one hand locked around his amulet. His eyes were squeezed shut and his breathing ragged. I reached for him, not sure what to do, but desperate to help somehow. This was my fault. I’d been the one to insist he take Marten.

  “Don’t.” He rolled away from me. “I’ll recover. I need to—need to strengthen my barriers. I can’t with you distracting me.”

  The way I had when I shoved all that false confidence into him. What had I been thinking?

  But I knew what I’d been thinking. I’d been soaring so high on the Taint that I’d let it fuck up my judgment, just like Cara had worried would happen.

  “Sorry. I shouldn’t have—” Looking at his turned back, I swallowed the rest. He’d said he didn’t want distractions. I scooted back and had to put a hand down to steady myself. I didn’t hurt like Kiran did, but my eyelids were heavy, the whole world weirdly off-kilter. Like I’d been awake for weeks and not hours.

  Cara dashed up with the satchel. Melly crowded in right behind her. Teo snapped at Melly to get back, and issued a string of terse orders that Cara hustled to follow.

  Melly approached me, holding out a waterskin. “Please drink some. You look awful.” She was trying to sound matter-of-fact, but her voice wobbled.

  I took the waterskin and drank. The water was cool on my throat, but it didn’t help anything else. I should be planning what we’d do if Marten died. But my head was just…empty. Like the void left by the Taint had spread to fill me entirely.

  Melly hunkered down next to me. “What happened? Did demons ambush you and hurt Marten?”

  “No,” I said. “He didn’t want to go, and I knocked him out and made Kiran take him. I didn’t know it would—fuck, that doesn’t matter. I’m the one who hurt him.” I bent my head onto my knees, wishing the world would go away for a while.

  Melly said, “I’m sorry I yelled at you before you left. You know I don’t hate you, right?”

  She was trying to make me feel better. I should respond. Say something to reassure her that my fuck-up with Marten wasn’t the utter disaster it appeared.

  I couldn’t think of anything reassuring. I said wearily into my knees, “If you did, you’d have every right.”

  A hand gripped my shoulder. I raised my head, and Cara pushed a cup at me. “Teo says you should drink this.”

  The liquid tasted like alkali
sludge, but I downed it without protest. Marten wasn’t convulsing anymore. I gathered he was still breathing, because Teo was busy pouring a potion down his throat and Lena’s chanting hadn’t once faltered. Kiran lay curled pitifully tight on his side in the sand. I hoped he hadn’t lied about recovering.

  My vision blurred and the world tilted sideways. Cara pulled me the rest of the way down, easing my head into her lap.

  “I’ve got him,” she told an anxiously hovering Melly. “Go bring Kiran some water.”

  “Is Kiran…?” I slurred.

  “He’ll be all right, Teo says.”

  I was too much a coward to ask about Marten. If he was dying, I didn’t want to know it. Not yet. But words spilled from me.

  “Cara, I fucked up. The Taint—I should’ve been more careful, I—”

  “Shhh.” Cara’s fingers carded gently through my hair. “We’ll talk about it later. For now, you rest. While you can.”

  That was an order I could gladly obey. I sank into darkness.

  * * *

  (Kiran)

  “Captain Martennan is asking for you.”

  Kiran lifted his aching head. Teo stood over him, his expression as closed and hard as it had been after Veddis’s death. Kiran staggered upright, trying not to kick sand on Cara. She was curled protectively around Dev, snoring softly into his hair. Dev slept so quietly it was only by the flicker of his ikilhia that Kiran knew he lived.

  “Is Marten all right?” Such a foolish thing to say. Of course Marten wasn’t all right.

  “He’s awake, yes.” Teo’s voice was hoarse with weariness. The soft light of dawn did not ease the dark pouches under his eyes or the lines etched deep in his tawny skin. “Coherent, even, which is more than I’d hoped for after seeing the damage his mind sustained. He knows who he is and seems to recall what’s happened.”

  “But…?”

  “He’s lost all ability to sense or use magic. Says he’s as blind and deaf to the aether as an untalented man.”