Magic Below Paris Complete Series Boxed Set (Books 1 - 8): Trading Into Shadow, Trading Into Darkness, Trading Close to Light, Trading By Firelight, Trading by Shroomlight, plus 3 more

by C. M. Simpson

  “The mage will explain.”

  Marsh listened as Roeglin told them how expending a lot of energy took its toll on a magic user and was surprised when Izmay pressed a cup of sweet kaffee into her hand.

  “No chocolate,” she said. “Sorry.”

  “Chocolate?” Felicity wanted to know.

  “It’s sweet. Restores energy faster. If we’re lucky, she’s not about to sleep for a few days.”

  Marsh wanted to reassure them that she wasn’t going to sleep for days. She was pretty sure just the one night would do it. Gustav patted her on the shoulder.

  “Stay right there,” he said. “We’ll clean up your mess.”

  “Hey.” Marsh wanted to protest that she could clean up her own damn mess, but she knew she couldn’t. She was already having trouble keeping her eyes open.

  Felicity must have noticed because she brushed Gustav aside and tucked her hand under Marsh’s arm.

  “I’ve got somewhere she can sleep,” she said, guiding Marsh back out into the hall and into the child’s bedroom. “Claudie and I can share tonight, and you need to rest.”

  Marsh wanted to argue but couldn’t figure out how to string two words together. Staying upright was hard enough. It was a relief when Claudette turned back the sheets and Felicity tucked her in. An embarrassment, sure, but a relief nonetheless.

  She wondered how many raiders she’d killed and hoped she hadn’t left too big a mess for the others to clear. Maybe there was some way she could make it up to them…tomorrow…when opening her eyes was within reach…

  19

  Snot Dust

  To her relief, Marsh woke without trouble the next morning, and there was no lurking fatigue like there had been before. She yawned and stretched and slid out from under the covers, wondering at the long, hot line of warmth stretched out beside her. Glancing back at the bed, she saw Mordanlenoowar lying against the wall and was amazed the kat hadn’t woken her when it had hopped up beside her.

  You were pretty out of it.

  “Good morning, Roeglin. Get out of my head. I’ll be out in a minute.”

  “You’ll get out here now, Leclerc.” Oh my, wasn’t Gustav just in the finest of forms today?

  Marsh hustled. There was no point in making the Protector captain and Ruins Hall emissary any grouchier than he already was. She wondered if Felicity and Claudette were ready to leave, but before she could ask, Izmay saw her.

  “Here. Eat.”

  As a morning greeting, there wasn’t much better, Marsh thought, taking the hot bread roll and overly sweet kaffee the shadow guard thrust into her hands. Following the example of those around her, Marsh ate quickly, not bothering with words. She figured Gustav would raise anything important, and she didn’t have anything to say.

  When he’d finished his own roll, Gustav turned to Felicity.

  “Do you think the girl will still be at her parents’ farm?”

  Felicity gave him a bewildered look.

  “Where else would she be?” she asked. “There’s nowhere else she could go.”

  “Except here,” hung unspoken between them, but no one called the words into being, and they loaded the mules with the things Felicity wanted to take with them, as well as enough supplies for several days. They left behind quite a bit, and Felicity insisted on penning a letter to leave on the kitchen table in case Claude returned.

  “He deserves to know we’re all right,” she said, “and where we’ve gone. The raiders would work it out easily enough anyway.”

  Marsh couldn’t argue with that, and it wasn’t as though Felicity had been very explicit. She had merely written that she’d be “over at Louis’s” until it was safe and that he could find her there. If the raiders read it, they could only guess at Kerrenin’s Ledge. There was no way of learning of the journey taking place in between.

  They were mounted and preparing to head out when Izmay looked at Gustav.

  “Who’s to say there will be anyone at the farm?” she asked. “The raiders are pretty thick in this part of the cavern.”

  She had a point, and Marsh wondered why she hadn’t thought of it. Gustav regarded the shadow guard with a contemplative gaze and then turned his mule toward the trail.

  “That’s the question, isn’t it, shadow guard? Why would there be anyone left outside the Ledge’s walls right now?”

  Put that way, it made Marsh think about why there might be any communities outside the Kerrenin’s Ledge walls when the raiders had worked so studiously to clear as many as they could from the communities below. What did they need more than the people she’d overheard them claim were the main reason for their invasion?

  It’s an interesting question, but we need you.

  Roeglin’s interruption was an unwelcome jolt back to reality, but Marsh was grateful.

  Gustav was glaring at her, and he’d halted his mule so he could turn in the saddle while he waited for her response. Marsh gave him her brightest smile and hoped he wouldn’t realize she’d been a very long ways away. It was too late.

  “I said, when you’ve finished collecting shroom spores, I’d like you to take point. Roeglin tells me you’ve worked with the scouts. Is that true?”

  It had been just one scout, and Marsh really wished Clarinay had been assigned to travel with them rather than Master Envermet’s forces, especially now.

  “Yes,” she managed, wishing it didn’t feel like she was blushing bright enough to be a beacon for the entire cavern.

  “Good. I need you to scout. Roeglin says you can shadow step faster than a mule can travel. Is that also true?”

  Marsh wished Roeglin had just shut the Deeps up but she didn’t deny it.

  “Yes. That’s true,” she said and then moved the subject forward. “How far ahead do you want me to scout, and will you be advancing while I do it?”

  “To the farm and back, and yes.”

  Marsh slid from her mule’s back, handing its reins to Roeglin as she altered her body to blend with the shadows. She felt the energy shift inside her, and the first edges of tiredness. That would never do.

  Remembering when she’d drawn the energy from Mordan to heal Piet, she looked around. This time she might not need the kat; there were plenty of shrooms growing on either side of the trail. If she asked all of them to give her a piece of energy, drawing a little from everything, rather than all from one, she might have enough to recharge herself so she wasn’t completely useless when they reached the farm.

  How had Tamlin said it worked? The rock mages said they could feel the energy of the life around them and pull a little of it to themselves. She thought about it, working to stay within the shadows as she drew on the life around her. It was like…like a river, a green warmth that soothed away the tiredness creeping into her bones.

  As soon as the tiredness was gone, Marsh let go of the connection, gradually becoming aware of the awed whispers behind her.

  “What did she do?”

  “How did she do that?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll ask her when she gets back.”

  If that wasn’t a cue to leave, Marsh didn’t know what was. She stepped into the darkness clustered around the base of a stalagmite, tugging on the shadows around her to see what or who else shared her surroundings. Once she had that and it was stable, she drew on the natural magic within to sense the lives nearby.

  There were no raiders, just a small group of shroom walkers streaking away, and more of the small furry creatures she hadn’t yet had time to identify. She circled back to the trail, picking up the faint life signs of Gustav and the others riding along it, and then she sped ahead, scanning for any danger that might be lying in wait.

  When she arrived at the farmhouse, she was relieved to see it was occupied, and not by raiders; the children playing in the yard proved that. Marsh crept closer, looking ahead to select the next patch of shadows she needed. As she did so, she scanned the house, taking in the details of those she could see or sense working inside and around it.<
br />
  It was fairly large as farms went, and well-staffed.

  Given how many times Felicity had said she’d been attacked and how close her farm was to this one, it seemed very strange that the people she could see should be going about their daily routines as though nothing threatened. The sheer calm of their demeanors made Marsh think they knew nothing of the raiders plaguing their cavern—or that they did, and it somehow didn’t matter.

  It was very strange.

  She circled the farm, searching for a child around Claudette’s age but not finding one. Where could the girl have gone? Once she was sure she had learned as much as she could, she stepped away from the farm proper and made a meandering circuit back to the trail, taking in the number of outbuildings, some of which housed animals and others which sheltered farm equipment or provided storage for feed and crops.

  There was still no sign of Ninetta.

  Once she was sure, Marsh started back. It was better to have nothing to report than to be kept wondering. She stepped to the shadows between the glows lighting the edges of the house, and then moved into the shelter of a cluster of calla shroom growing at the edge of the path. The sudden sickening stench of rotten brown noses came as an unpleasant shock, and nausea rippled through her.

  She fell out of shadow form coughing and retching as she put her hand out to one of the callas for support. The solid thunk of a wooden pole across her back knocked her to her knees, and a hard kick lifted her and tossed her a couple of feet while she was still trying to grasp the fact she’d been seen and ambushed.

  That spoke of some kind of magic all by itself. She contemplated it as she tried to move, but another kick rolled her onto her back, and a boot stomped down in the middle of her chest. The sharp tines of a pitchfork settled just above her throat and she froze, trying to focus on the form above her.

  We’re coming.

  Oh, good. Roeglin had managed to catch all that. Marsh tried to get her eyes to work and to find her breath.

  “Gotcha!”

  Yeah, you got me, merde-pour-cerv, she thought. It had been meant to come out as words, but her mouth wasn’t working. The face that swam into view had the long chiseled look of a Kerrenin’s Ledge local, even if he was built slightly taller and a little bit more solid.

  He didn’t seem a bit bothered by her silence, but stabbed the pitchfork into the ground not far from her head and leaned the handle against a calla trunk. Crouching beside it, he watched her as she struggled to make the world stand still. He didn’t even stop her from rolling to her knees and throwing up.

  When she was done, Marsh turned her head and stared at him.

  “What…” she managed, and he smiled.

  “Snot dust,” he said. “Toxic when inhaled, and very effective against those who walk the shadows. It’s a family recipe.”

  Marsh closed her eyes, trying to keep her balance as she shuffled slightly to one side. Her first attempt to stand saw her land heavily on her side, but this time she was hauled to her feet. At least he hadn’t called the snot dust a family secret. It might mean she got to live after all.

  “So,” he began, collecting his pitchfork, “where are your friends, then?”

  Or not, she thought. He might not let her live. She could be in the very deep-and-dark right now. She decided to answer honestly anyway.

  “Coming.”

  He didn’t ask her anything more after that but started dragging her toward the farmhouse, shouting as he went.

  “Ring the bell! Bernard! Ring the Deeps-damned bell!”

  Marsh did her best to keep up, losing her footing twice as the world twisted and blurred around her and her stomach rolled. They hit the back door of the farmhouse, and she was towed unceremoniously through a kitchen and then down a set of stairs, where she really did lose her footing. Fortunately, he didn’t let her tumble the rest of the way but settled for dragging her as she fought to get her legs to work.

  A sturdy wooden seat waited in a small stone room on the other side of a storage cellar and Marsh was slammed into it, her arms dragged back and lashed down tight.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” her captor snarled, jerking on the ropes.

  The chair rocked beneath her, but he steadied it and then lashed her ankles to the two front chair legs.

  “Not. Anywhere,” he emphasized, which was fine with Marsh.

  What was not so fine were the three other men who came to join him in the cell. At least, she thought there were three. The way their shapes were wavering in front of her eyes, there might have two or twenty.

  Nah. Not twenty, she thought. That would be too many for the cell.

  Her captor crouched in front of the chair, and she looked into his eyes.

  “Shadow mage,” he said, and Marsh waited.

  His point was?

  “How many are coming?”

  She rolled her eyes. How in all the Deeps was she supposed to remember that? She felt like something she’d scraped off her boot and maybe like she should be throwing up on his boots. After all, if it was his fault she was sick, and turn-about was fair play, wasn’t it?

  Tell him Felicity and Claudette have an escort of seven.

  Roeglin’s voice was a welcome distraction.

  “Felicity and Claudette…” she began, and the look on his face grew tense.

  Marsh tried to find the rest of the words, but she took too long and he shook her.

  “Felicity and Claudette what?” he demanded.

  “Deeps, please don’t…” she managed, but that wasn’t the answer he wanted.

  He pulled a knife from his belt and laid the edge of the blade at the top of her cheekbone, pressing hard enough to split skin.

  Well, there was only one reply to that.

  Marsh threw up on him, feeling the blade tear deeper as he recoiled. She counted herself lucky when the wiggly shapes resolved themselves into two men who dragged him out of the room before he could do more than shout in outrage and disgust. She wondered what was happening when a third shape wandered into view, casually kicking the door closed and locking it behind them.

  Marsh lifted her head and hoped she was done because something told her things had just gone from bad to worse. It was a relief when the newcomer dragged the chair to a clear patch of floor, and not so much when he stood over her and bent to put his forehead against hers.

  “Now, I know you’re not one of us,” he said, keeping his voice soft enough not to carry to the door, “but they don’t. So, tell me, just how many of your friends are escorting the very elusive Felicity and Claudette?”

  Well, shag the shadows and screw the shrooms, Roeglin said. That changes things.

  “Yeah. You go on. I’ll be fine.”

  You’ll be dead if we’re both not careful. Hang in there while I talk to Gustav. He was back in her head a few heartbeats later. What did they hit you with?

  “Snot dust?”

  Roeglin’s reply was knocked from her head by the gloved backhand that struck her hard enough to send the chair spinning. Marsh felt gums split and teeth shift and wished she could shadow herself out of her bindings, but it was just too hard to concentrate that deeply when she felt this sick. She hoped she could manage it soon because she was going to need more than the shadows to protect her if she couldn’t.

  The shadows.

  She remembered how they’d answered when she hadn’t even been aware she needed them, swarming in a sticky mass down the café’s walls and boiling overhead in the Mid-Point dining room. Well, if ever she needed them, it was now. Tied as she was, she couldn’t even curl into a ball as the raider crossed over to stand in front of her.

  “How many?” he asked and nudged her with the toe of his boot.

  Behind him, the door rattled.

  “Just a minute!”

  “I swear, Idris, you kill another one, and I will end you.”

  The fury in the farmer’s voice made Marsh want to laugh. It wasn’t as if he could actually stop Idris from doing anything fr
om out there. Sure, he could kill the man once the deed was done, but that didn’t leave her anywhere good.

  Idris nudged her again.

  “What do you say, shadow mage? Are you going to promise not to tell him our secret, or am I gonna see how much a man of his word he might be?”

  “Safe,” Marsh managed.

  She’d wanted to tell him that his secret was safe, but her mouth wouldn’t cooperate. He seemed to get it anyway, or maybe he just thought she’d had so much snot dust she wasn’t going to be a threat to anyone. Blood trickled down one side of her face from where the farmer’s blade had sliced her cheek, and she tasted iron where the raider had struck.

  He settled the chair back on all four of its legs and the world danced before her eyes.

  “By the Deep’s Mandibles, what did you do to her?” the farmer asked when Idris let him back into the room.

  The raider shrugged.

  “She has a smart mouth. I slapped some manners into it. She was just about to tell me how many men were accompanying your neighbors.”

  He glanced at Marsh, and she got the message.

  “Shev’n,” she managed.

  “Sheven,” she repeated when they looked at her in puzzlement, and then she closed her eyes.

  The world was doing wild gyrations, and she didn’t want to see them. She heard footsteps, and then someone shook her.

  “What?” came out tired, and someone peeled her eyelid up—the other one. The one that hadn’t spoken yet.

  “By the Deep and Dark, how much snot did you hit her with?”

  “She walked right into it. Got the full dose and went down like a sack.”

  “And you never thought she might need the antidote?”

  “What do I care? She’s just another shadow mage.”

  “Yeah, but she’s not a raider, and we might need—”

  The farmer was on him in a shot, knocking him to one side and sending Marsh’s chair over onto its side. She managed to keep her head from hitting the floor, but by the Deeps that hurt.

  Not as much, she decided, as the beating the farmer was giving his worker.