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

  “About that,” she said, and they both knew she meant his snooping inside her head. “Didn’t you have objections to your head being read without your permission?”

  The boy scowled at her and Jean looked from one of them to the other, his small face creased with worry. Marsh laid a hand on his shoulder.

  “Don’t worry, Jean. I’m pretty sure Roeglin can talk to him about that. Looks like those two have plenty in common.”

  Her tone of voice said Roeglin had better talk to Geralt about his abilities, and she had no doubt the mage was far enough inside her head to know it. She decided not to push it but turned herself about instead and went inside, leaving the guards to follow.

  5

  Surface Skirmish

  “Well, that was interesting,” Gabe said when they were all settled around one of the tables and Ursula had joined them from the kitchen. He looked at the two boys. “You should have told us about your abilities.”

  Ursula’s eyes widened, and Marsh guessed there’d be some discussion after the pair went to bed. Gabe caught Geralt’s eye and continued.

  “We appreciate anything extra you can do, especially if it means we have enough supplies in store for any caravan that arrives. The journey up from the pools or down from the entrance to the Ledge cavern would give us enough time to go hunting with the wolves or dig extra from the garden for the next meal, and we could have the barn prepared ahead of time. The Deeps know we’re so shorthanded now that any extra notice is appreciated.”

  He paused and then smiled.

  “And I bet you could tell me if any of our guests were planning on doing us harm, couldn’t you?”

  Geralt blushed, and Jean interrupted.

  “He has to close his eyes,” the younger brother said, “or everyone can see his eyes change color, and they’ll know he’s in their heads.”

  Roeglin groaned.

  “Mind-walking,” he said. “It’s called mind-walking—and yes, you’re not supposed to do it without consent.”

  Coughing and spluttering broke out around the table as the Protectors were caught mid-bite, sip or swallow. Even Marsh found she was smirking at the mage’s discomfort.

  “And the Deeps thought it was a good idea for a twelve-year-old to have it,” Gustav muttered and glared at Jean. “At least it’s better than giving a ten-year-old the ability to throw fireballs about.”

  Jean looked mortified, but Gabe reached over and draped his arm around the boy’s shoulders.

  “If each of us could do that, we wouldn’t have to worry about the remnant so much,” he said. “They don’t like fire.”

  It was the right thing to say, and Jean perked up, looking just a bit pleased with himself. Marsh was glad for him, but worried, too.

  “The key phrase there,” she said, “is ‘if each of us could.’ You never thought to try?”

  Gustav and Roeglin groaned.

  “You know we’ve got us a raider spy to catch, don’t you?” Gustav asked, and Marsh shrugged.

  “Yeah, but I’ve also got family to think about. We can’t leave the waystation undefended.”

  “Master Envermet will be here within the next four days,” Gustav said, and Marsh stared at him.

  No one had told her that!

  “Need to know,” Gustav added, catching her look. “We didn’t want to raise people’s hopes if the Shadow Master wanted him to stay at the Ledge.”

  Which meant Roeglin had known too…and hadn’t told her. Marsh shot him a glare as well.

  “Like the man said, ‘Need to know.’”

  Marsh wanted to argue that she’d needed to know, but she couldn’t think of a single reason why.

  “Well, I appreciate it,” Gabe said, looking mildly relieved. “My last set of stable hands couldn’t handle being under the big blue and complained that the sun hurt their eyes. They waited until Master Gage went through and returned to the Ledge with him.”

  He sighed.

  “I wasn’t sure what we were going to do. Between the remnant and the raiders, I was worried. And now the boys…” He gestured vaguely, and Ursula laid a hand on his arm.

  “I told you not to worry,” she said, snuggling against him. “Silly man.”

  It made Marsh wonder if the woman didn’t have a little magic of her own, but she couldn’t for the life of her work out what it might be.

  Gustav favored the stationmaster with a broad smile.

  “Well, then,” he said, “if I give you this, I won’t have to worry about the famous Cavallon temper, will I?”

  He shuffled back in his chair, digging around in one of the pouches at his belt, pulling out a shroom-paper envelope, and passing it to Gabe. The stationmaster looked at him.

  “This has the Council seal on it. Are you sure I can open it here?”

  Gustav looked around the table.

  “Yep. No one here that won’t need to know about it, and at least three folks who you’re gonna need to consult with when you make the decision.”

  Gabe slit the envelope and unfolded the parchment within, reading it swiftly and silently as they all waited to hear what it said.

  “Well, shoo?” Ursula pressed when he’d finished reading and sat with the parchment folded in his lap. “What did it say?”

  “That idea you had,” Gabe began, sounding stunned. “The one you said came in a dream. They’re doing it.”

  A dream? Marsh was curious but couldn’t work out any way to ask—and Ursula was far too excited.

  “Truly? A dedicated body of Protectors for the Ledge caverns?”

  Gabe nodded.

  “And for us,” he told her. “They want to station two…” He unfolded the paper and looked at it once more. “No. Three or four squads here. Two to train, and two to patrol. Pa’s going to be in charge until the trade starts flowing again.”

  Marsh suspected that Per would be in charge for a lot longer than that but didn’t say so, and Gabe hadn’t finished.

  “And they’ll be bringing mages with them,” he said. “Shadow guards and rock mages.”

  He sighed.

  “No druids, though.” His gaze strayed to the wolves. “We could really do with a druid out here.”

  Gustav rolled his eyes then looked at Marsh.

  “It’s your turn to do the honors,” he said, and Marsh suppressed a groan.

  Instead, she said, “Rock mages are druids. They’re just called rock mages because of what they do in the caverns.”

  Gabe’s face brightened.

  “Truly?”

  Marsh sighed.

  “Truly,” she said, and there was silence around the table as everyone ate their meals and thought about the news.

  After a few moments, though, Jean’s small voice interrupted their thoughts.

  “Will there be anyone who can teach me more magic?”

  “More fire magic?” Marsh asked, but the boy shook his head.

  “That would be good,” he replied, “but I was hoping to learn that thing you did where your eyes turned green and you borrowed people’s energy to heal.”

  Before Marsh had a chance to reply, Roeglin spoke.

  “Marsh can teach you that,” he said. “There’s no need to wait for Master Envermet.”

  Marsh glared at him, and Jean, catching the look on her face, looked shattered.

  “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he said, and Marsh felt her heart go out to him.

  “I can try,” she told him. “I just haven’t taught anyone that trick before.”

  “Not a trick,” Gustav countered, rubbing the healed side of his newly-shaved head. “See?”

  Jean slipped out of his seat and went over to inspect it.

  “I’m really sorry,” he said, and Gustav patted his shoulder.

  “Don’t be, boy. You couldn’t exactly get rid of it inside, now, could you?”

  Before Jean could respond to that, Ironshade leapt to his feet, giving a series of yips that brought the pack to its feet. Next to the fire, Mo
rdanlenoowar growled and rolled upright. Gabe’s eyes flashed green, and he ran for the bar at the back of the commons.

  “Remnant!” he shouted as wolf pack and hoshkat gathered at the door.

  “Where?” Marsh demanded as Gustav and the shadow guards rose from their seats.

  Geralt’s eyes went white.

  “Twenty at the gates. Five or ten trying the postern.”

  Postern?

  “Side gate, Marsh. Like the one you snuck out of at Gravine’s.”

  So much for Roeglin being subtle!

  “Let them out, Jean,” Gabe ordered. “We’re going to need all the help we can get.”

  As the boy hurried to do as he was told, Gabe looked at the guards.

  “Did you bring ranged weapons?”

  “We’ve got crossb—” Gustav stopped as the three shadow guards drew darts from the darkness in the corners of the room. “Or that. We’ve got that too.”

  “Anything else?” Gabe asked, and turned to Geralt without waiting for an answer. “How long, Geralt?”

  But the boy’s eyes were back to their normal dark brown, and he was running for a door at the back of the room.

  “Not long! Jean, we need our slingshots.”

  Jean opened the door, and the wolves and kat raced out into the dark.

  “Don’t open the postern!” Gabe shouted, but the boy was running after his brother. “And what did I say about slingshots?”

  It wasn’t really a question, and Gabe hit the door shortly after the beasts. He shouted at Gustav as he passed.

  “Get your bows! The rest of you, with me.”

  Since when had her cousin gotten so bossy? Marsh wondered, but she didn’t have time for childhood memories.

  She pushed back her chair and hurried after him, only to be stopped when Gustav grabbed her arm.

  “Lightning,” he told her. “Get on the wall and nail those bastards to the ground.”

  Marsh nodded and was about to do exactly as he’d said when a soft voice interrupted them.

  “Do the postern gate first,” Ursula said. “They’re almost through.”

  “Show me.”

  “We’ll come with you,” Geralt said as the boys raced back into the room.

  Roeglin looked at Gustav.

  “We’ll join you on the walls as soon as the postern’s secured.”

  “This way,” Geralt urged, turning for the kitchens.

  “Hurry!” Ursula urged, and Marsh, Roeglin, and the boys headed through the kitchens at a jog.

  By the time they got to the postern gate, the remnant were almost through. The gate’s wooden panels were cracked, and pieces had started falling off. Marsh caught a glimpse of distorted remnant faces and felt a surge of revulsion, but she didn’t stop. She followed Geralt past the wolves gathered in front of the gate and up a narrow set of stairs leading to the top of the wall.

  Halfway up, Geralt stopped, blocking the way.

  “There are others,” he said, but before Marsh could ask him what he meant, an all-too-familiar screech rent the air.

  “Shadow monsters,” she whispered and grabbed the boy, shaking the white from his eyes. “Get me to the top.”

  As he scrambled to obey, another gibbering shriek followed the first and Roeglin swore.

  “Don’t touch those minds,” he told the boy. “Find the others. The ones that let them through.”

  “Okay, but I don’t…”

  “Just do it,” Roeglin told him. “Marsh and I will take care of the rest.”

  They would?

  Of course, we will, Roeglin told her, but he didn’t tell her how.

  Marsh hit the top of the wall, wondering what in all the Deeps shadow monsters were doing up on the surface. Envermet had said they didn’t like the surface. The sight of Mordan leaping off the wall and into the dark brought her up short.

  “Dan!”

  The kat didn’t stop, and she didn’t wait. She was hunting, and shadow mages tasted much better than the monsters at the gate. Marsh could deal with those.

  “Fine.”

  Marsh turned to the wall, setting her hands on the narrow parapet and trying to see out into the dark. It was almost like being back in the caverns if she ignored the open expanse of sky above her head. Just like being in a cavern…which meant she only had to shift her vision from what she used when the sun shone to what she needed to see through the dark.

  That was easily done. What was harder to achieve was actually seeing the remnant she could hear battering their way through the gate.

  Since when did you ever need to see what you were destroying?

  As annoying as it was, Roeglin had a point. Marsh looked up at the sky, ready to call the shadows from the ceiling. Ready to summon them from the cracks and crevices and around the base of the stalactites…and she froze.

  “I-I can’t,” she murmured, looking up at the clear sky with its array of twinkling stars.

  She gestured at them.

  “I-I just can’t.”

  Wood splintered and cracked in the gate below, making her jump. Roeglin ignored it.

  “Just try.”

  “But—”

  The shadow mage reached over and slapped the back of her head.

  “It’s all darkness,” he said. “It’s just on the surface instead of a cave. Now call the damn darkness and do your job!”

  “Hey!”

  “You really need to hurry,” Geralt said, his voice taut with worry. “They’re coming.”

  Oh, “they” were, were they?

  Yes, they Deeps well are! Listen.

  But Marsh didn’t need to listen. She could hear them—hoots and howls and screams that threatened terrible things. She wondered what Mordan was doing and caught a fleeting impression of bushes with the slightly darker outline of a man set against them.

  She also caught the overwhelming need for silence and focus, because the night was full of monsters and more were coming through. There was fear, too. The wolf pack wasn’t going to be enough. The pride was in danger. Mordan didn’t think she could stop them all.

  The kat moved, her belly low to the ground as she stalked the rogue mage.

  Wood cracked, and there was a sudden growl and a cry of pain. Roeglin reached out and shook her.

  “Move your ass,” he said. “Hunting with the kat isn’t going to save us.”

  As if to emphasize his words, Marsh heard more wood splinter, and one of the wolves yelped. Geralt stuck his head over the edge of the walkway.

  “They’re almost through,” he yelled, and Marsh knew she had to try.

  She knew she could call lightning from the darkness, knew she could summon spears from the cavern shadows. What she had to work out now was whether she could do the same in the clear night air.

  “That night air is made of shadow,” Roeglin told her. “If you can’t use it like you do in the caverns, you have no right to call yourself a shadow mage.”

  Marsh’s mind raced, and she thought about raining lightning down onto the monsters clustered around the gate. She also registered the hunting cries of the shadow monsters and knew she’d have to deal with them too…and she remembered that Mordan was out there.

  “I need to know where the kat is,” she said, and Geralt answered before Roeglin could.

  “She’s over by the trees. There,” he said, pointing to show her where a stand of trees formed a dark hollow in the night.

  Look though she might, Marsh couldn’t see the kat, but she could hear the wolves, and it sounded like several of them had joined the first in attacking whatever part of the remnant they could reach through the broken gate.

  “Do something, Marsh.”

  “The other things are almost here,” Geralt added, and Marsh knew what she had to do.

  “Show me,” she said. “You can see into my mind. Now, show me.”

  “I…I don’t…”

  “Just keep looking, boy,” Roeglin interrupted, then added, “Here!”

  Marsh’s worl
d blurred and shook, and she could see what Geralt had been trying to show her. How the boy could handle looking at the world this way, she didn’t know, but it helped. Roeglin didn’t care.

  “Now call the shadows, Marsh.”

  Call the shadows… Marsh closed her eyes, holding onto the picture of the landscape beyond the waystation’s walls. She could do this. There were plenty of shadows. The whole sky was full of them. She could create a storm bigger than any she’d ever brewed in the caverns, one that stretched all around the waystation walls. She could dig a trench with the impact of every bolt, and use the blood of remnant and shadow monster alike to fill it.

  This time she smelt the lightning on the air, felt the static brush her skin, and heard the snap and crackle as the bolts formed. The shouts and threats from the remnant by the gate turned into screams of terror. The howls and screeches of the oncoming horde of shadow monsters took on the timbre of fear, and Geralt shouted.

  “Stop!” He grabbed her shoulder and shook her. “Stop! Stop! Stop!”

  Panic flowed through the link and Marsh stopped, reaching out to soothe the rankled air, aware of the silence descending in storm’s wake.

  “Stop,” Geralt whispered. “The kat needs you.”

  Mordan needed her?

  The kat answered her question with a flood of pain. She’d taken down one mage and changed position to stalk the next. She hadn’t seen the storm forming, and her path had taken her beneath its edges. The mage had seen the storm, and that had been all that had saved Mordan as she’d chased him up the slope, but even that had not been enough to save her entirely.

  The first bolt of darkness had gouged its way across her hip and down her leg, knocking her off her stride. The second had caught her tail and sent a jolt through her hindquarters that had sent her tumbling clear of the rest.

  Marsh raced down the steps, relieved to see the postern gate was clear, even if it made it hard to open. She grabbed the locking bar and hefted it, then realized that was all that had been holding the remnant at bay.

  The minute she removed it the rest of the boards fell away, landing on the bodies of fallen remnant just beyond the opening. At least, she thought they were bodies. She couldn’t be sure.