Plague of Spells

by Bruce R Cordell

  But Anusha was not a ghost, nor did she mean anyone harm. Normally, Anusha couldn’t even bring herself to hurt spiders scuttling around the corners of her suite. Her grazing contact with the sailor’s … insides … was an accident. He didn’t deserve what she’d done to him, whatever that was.

  Or did he?

  The truth was, both the screaming woman and the convulsing man were pirates, not sailors. She’d overheard both Japheth and Behroun say it, and other evidence she’d found on the ship the last few days confirmed it.

  The man and woman had probably done a lot of terrible things. Perhaps they deserved a little pain, if not something more drastic, in return. Perhaps she should reach up and quiet the woman too, before she drew a response. It wouldn’t do to draw more people down here, wondering why one travel chest didn’t show up on the hold manifest.

  But she couldn’t bring herself to follow through.

  Besides, already voices echoed from the decks above, yelling questions. The ship was alerted that something strange was in the hold. Nothing she could do now would change that; she would only make things worse by attacking the woman.

  A chill of foreboding touched the back of her neck. If her sleeping body was discovered, they’d forcefully wake her. Then what? Would they tie her behind the ship to drag through the cold, shark-filled water until she drowned or died of cold? Did pirates really do that?

  Yes, of course they did.

  Anusha moved until she stood just a few feet from the polished shields. With the new angle, she could no longer see the screaming woman’s distorted image in any of the shields; hopefully, neither could the woman see her. Just to be safe, Anusha reached out and struck all three shields to the floor. They clattered loudly, and the pirate screamed the louder.

  Bobbing shapes, visible around the edges of the hold opening, resolved as the heads of watchful, muttering pirates. They gazed down at their crewmates with varying degrees of surprise, humor, and real fear. None of them had seen Anusha’s reflection.

  A new voice blared down, “What’s all this then, Brida? What’s wrong with Dorlan? I wager you stuck him, but are trying to claim it’s spirits that done it. Am I right?”

  Anusha saw the speaker peering down from the top deck, the toes of his boots overhanging the square opening. The elaborate hat revealed the man as Captain Thoster.

  The woman on the ladder, apparently named Brida, kept her eyes fixed on the fallen shield in which she’d glimpsed Anusha’s dream image. Brida exclaimed in a fear-coarsened voice, “No, sir! It was a ghost! I saw it myself, right after it got Dorlan—right there!” She pointed. Her arm shook as she tried to indicate where she’d seen the “ghost.”

  Anusha took a few more steps away from the fallen shields, then paused. What would Captain Thoster make of the claim?

  The captain turned his head and spoke to someone standing just back from the opening, his voice not loud enough for Anusha to hear his words. It sounded like a question.

  Then a cloaked shape appeared at the edge of the hold access. Her breath caught slightly. It was Japheth!

  Even from two decks below, Anusha could see Japheth’s eyes gleamed red. His gaze locked with her own. Fear thrilled down her spine and her stomach tightened.

  A third shape appeared next to Thoster, a woman dressed in a bone white sari wielding a scarlet-glyphed wand.

  It was Seren, the Green Siren’s mercenary wizard.

  Thoster complained to Japheth and Seren, “I don’t see anything.”

  Japheth looked up at the captain and the wizard, then back down into her eyes, still silent. Could he see her, or was she imagining it?

  Seren traced symbols in the air with her free hand. Where her fingers passed, lines of magical energy persisted moments before fading. Syllables of pure arcane magic tumbled from Seren’s lips. Her eyes flashed with a glint of citrine light.

  “There!” said Seren, gesturing with her wand down at Anusha. “I see it now—an apparition! The spirit of a drowned woman, perhaps, lingers in your hold, Captain.”

  Anusha cursed. She nearly woke herself … but then thought, I’ve got to lead them away from my travel chest!

  Instead of retreating, Anusha ran to the steps of the ladder and climbed. She slipped past the still petrified Brida on the broad rope rungs without touching her.

  Seren cried, “It ascends; it attacks!”

  Seren backed out of Anusha’s view, as did Thoster, his features betraying bafflement and a hint of concern. Japheth merely cocked his head and observed. There was no doubt he saw her; his eyes didn’t leave her as she climbed, and she ascended quickly. Without any real weight, rising required hardly any effort. She wondered, even as she clambered onto the top deck, apparently in full sight of Japheth, if she needed a ladder to ascend at all. She’d had dreams of flying when she was younger. Maybe if—

  Seren hadn’t run away; she’d merely retreated a few steps to cast another spell. The war wizard threw out her free hand, and from her fingertips sprang a tremendous stroke of blinding purple-white lightning.

  Anusha screamed as obliterating, mind-shattering pain coursed through her naked, unprotected soul.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Year of the Secret (1396 DR)

  City of Nathlekh

  A remarkable bridge provided access to Nathlekh. Not long ago, no such bridge had been required.

  A decade earlier, a slow but inexorable earth movement thrust a majority of the city’s Shou ward several hundred feet higher than the rest of the city. Hundreds of structures along the edges of the fault were destroyed. By chance, the destroyed structures were mostly the homes of non-Shou, though the Shou faced their own share of loss. When the earth stopped moving, the survivors slowly forgot their fear, especially those whose homes, mansions, and businesses remained. As many pointed out too, the new city heights provided an unexpected but welcome defensive stance against a landscape suddenly more dangerous than ever before.

  Thus, once the sky fires, earth movements, and attacks by plaguechanged monsters subsided, a collection of the city’s Shou nobles poured a large portion of their considerable wealth into the creation of the bridge.

  The Dragon Bridge supported a wide and thick stone span that sprang from the earth near the piers on Long Arm Lake to rise in a diagonal line all the way up to the Sky District. The Dragon Bridge was named for its supporting arches, each of which took the form of a sculpted, sinuous stone dragon. Each successively larger stone dragon bore the weight of its span section in a unique fashion—some on arched backs, others in wide maws, and even one, who stood closest to Nathlekh’s stone column, in clawed hands raised high above its head as it reared on its hind legs.

  A series of three massive, gated checkpoints along the bridge’s span guarded against attacking ground forces, or, as happened on occasion even more than a decade after the Spellplague, groups of homeless refugees. Each gated wall contained barracks for a company of bridge guardians commanded by a gate captain.

  Raidon Kane ascended the Dragon Bridge in the back of a cart drawn by two donkeys, driven by an old Shou farmer. Raidon silently wondered if he were, in truth, being brought to Nathlekh as the farmer claimed. Last time he’d been here, there’d been no Dragon Bridge.

  It seemed impossible that such a dramatic change could overtake the city in little over a decade. Then again, the changes that occurred while the blue fire raged defied reason. In comparison to what he’d seen in Starmantle, Nathlekh’s uplift hardly seemed worth mentioning.

  His foot cramped suddenly, as if to rebuke him for recalling the awful image of Starmantle and the ghoul-like aberrations that inhabited it. He wondered if the wound would ever completely heal. Even now, wrapped in linens provided by the kindly farmer’s wife, his foot seeped fluids. Each new day, he concentrated all his healing ability on the limb, attempting to reknit more of the lost skin and sensitivity to touch. Each day, he convinced himself he made a little more progress.

  In truth, the wound was much improved.
Raidon might have walked this final distance into Nathlekh today, probably with just a minor limp. But the solicitous farmers, who’d found him crawling amid their turnip beds a tenday earlier, who’d nursed him back to health in their modest dwelling, wouldn’t hear of him walking so soon. They offered to take him up to Nathlekh by donkey cart. In the end, he’d gratefully accepted.

  The biggest mystery of all was his location. He was far closer to the city when the farmers found him than he should have been.

  The last thing he recalled was falling asleep in the rain on top of a hard-won bluff near Starmantle. Even upon reaching the safety of the bluff’s top, he half suspected he would never see another day.

  But he survived. When he opened his eyes next, it was to a cool sunrise. There was no bluff, no burning forest, and no rain. He lay in a turnip field. He couldn’t recall anything between falling asleep and waking along the edge of a farm. A turnip farm that turned out to be nearly two hundred miles west of his last location just outside Nathlekh!

  Raidon wondered again if he were going insane. It could be he was losing his memory before his mind.

  Or perhaps the Spellplague described to him by the ghouls had so altered the landscape that cities and other previously fixed points had become unstuck from their old foundations. He didn’t have enough information to rightly judge.

  A new thought struck him. Perhaps the Cerulean Sign had something to do with it. Had the symbol, now spellscarred into his flesh, somehow contrived to move him toward his unconscious goal while he lay at death’s door?

  Sometimes it seemed he could almost discern a voice speaking his name …

  Raidon pushed these speculations from his head. Right now, all that mattered was finding Ailyn. He tried to imagine in what circumstance he’d find her. His anxiety over what had become of the girl was more painful than his throbbing foot.

  They ascended the great dragon-supported bridge. As the cart approached the third and final gate, a gate guard signaled the farmer to stop his cart.

  Words penetrated Raidon’s apprehension. The gate guard was saying, “… only. Turn around and take your cargo with you, I said. Be glad I do not fine you.”

  “What is this nuisance?” Raidon spoke up. “Why are you holding us up? This man has no cargo today but me. He is due no merchant fees.”

  The guard sneered and returned, “In these dangerous times, non-Shou who wish to enter Nathlekh can only do so with an invitation.”

  “But this man …” The guard’s implication struck home. The guard referred to Raidon, not the farmer.

  Raidon began again, “My father is a son of the east, and he raised me in Telflamm, some thirty … nay, forty years ago. But disregard that; I am a resident of Nathlekh. I kept my residence here before the Spellplague. My daughter lives here even now. You cannot deny me entry to my home.”

  The guard tried to meet Raidon’s gaze. And failed. Apparently he was unused to opposition from people in donkey carts. He scowled. “Stay here. I’ll get the captain.” The man stalked off.

  Raidon usually passed as Shou, but sometimes strangers noticed his fey ancestry. His long-absent mother’s blood manifest in him only faintly, but was visible to those sensitive to such differences. Raidon’s ears were ever so slightly pointed, the shape of his skull was perhaps narrower than other Shou, and his bearing was straight, though no straighter than any other practitioner of Xiang Do. He thought of himself as Shou. Usually, his mother’s blood didn’t cause any problems … except sometimes among other Shou.

  The farmer ventured, “The city folk have seen too many horrors during and after the Year of Blue Fire. They outlawed refugees and fey from entering the city five years ago. Xenophobia and nationalism grip even those who were once counted as wise.”

  Raidon grunted.

  Normally when he suffered such slights, he imagined his mind a depthless pool of water in which insult, injury, and pain were feeble pebbles, easily swallowed.

  Today his foot hurt, and he was worried about his daughter.

  His focus was askew, and without its calming influence, he anticipated the possibility of the captain proving difficult. Raidon imagined what he might do in response. The teachings of Xiang Temple stirred, scolding him for holding himself beyond their guiding principles. Raidon clenched his fists, then allowed them to relax a finger at a time, exhaling as he did so.

  The captain strode up with the hateful guard in tow. The captain was a tall Shou in laminated mail. He gave Raidon an extended look, then said, “Allow these through.” He turned and stomped back to the commandery.

  The original guard’s frown deepened and he muttered, “You don’t fool me. Don’t think this is over.” With that, he stepped aside and allowed them to proceed. The man’s hate-filled stare followed them until the side of the gate blocked Raidon’s view.

  Once inside, the farmer let Raidon down from the cart. The farmer wished him luck in finding his child. Raidon nodded, thanking the man. He did not dishonor the man’s generosity by offering payment. Sincerity was enough reward for those raised according to eastern traditions.

  As the sound of the creaking cart diminished into the distance, Raidon studied Nathlekh’s vista. But his thoughts were on Ailyn. What had come of a child so young, left alone save for paid servants, in the face of the greatest calamity of the age without a parent’s guidance?

  Nothing good, his apprehension insisted.

  His worry proved unbearably accurate.

  Three days later, Raidon’s search concluded at the foot of a four-foot-high, hardened clay structure resembling a beehive. All around him were similar structures. Clusters of clay markers of various dimension protruded from the ground, though the largest ones were central, and the smaller ones spiraled around them.

  Raidon stood in Nathlekh’s “city of the dead,” where the deceased were interred.

  He stood before one of the smallest clay markers, a desolate and broken man.

  It was Ailyn’s grave.

  From an inner pocket of his jacket, he pulled with shaking hands a weathered, corroded bell.

  He whispered, “I brought this for you, as I promised …”

  He laid the gift before the marker. The tinkling, glad sound it made drew hot tears to his cheek.

  Grief squeezed his heart. His chest was a hollow, gasping emptiness. He could barely draw in air, his throat was so tight.

  Raidon had learned Ailyn perished in the first tremors preceding Nathlekh’s sudden rise in altitude. She’d been dead more than ten years.

  That knowledge did nothing to lessen Raidon’s grief.

  The staff he’d paid to watch over her in his absence had scattered to the four winds after her death, but Raidon had found one working in a scullery. This one described Ailyn’s fate to Raidon in shaking, terrified tones.

  The monk wondered again what thoughts had flashed through her head, as the walls of their dwelling collapsed, and the servants had rushed from the domicile, leaving her alone. Had she cried out for him?

  An anguished sob escaped Raidon, and he collapsed across the grave marker.

  According to Shou tradition, if surviving relatives and descendants pay sufficient respect to their dead, the dead in their turn exercise a benevolent influence over the lives and prosperity of their family. Thus it was not uncommon for a Shou household to set aside a small area called a shrine, where small carved representations of one or more dead relatives were set. While a few shrines were populated with a plethora of figures with a one-to-one correspondence to dead ancestors, most Shou households kept only a single figure to represent all those loved and lost.

  In his absence, Raidon hadn’t been able to see to it that this simplest and oldest Shou tradition of mourning was followed.

  Even after her death, he had disappointed his adopted daughter, Raidon thought, his head pressed against the cool clay of Ailyn’s grave marker. He was despicable.

  It was as if scales dropped from his eyes, revealing Raidon to himself with hideous
new understanding. All his philosophy and mental disciplines, his Xiang Do and pride in his skill—were these anything more than crutches he used to hold up his own ego? No. They were but facades that hid his true, demonstrated deficits for the things that mattered most in the mortal world. He’d allowed his “monster hunting” and vapid search for his long-vanished mother to distract him from the one thing in his life with true meaning.

  His daughter.

  His dead daughter.

  Raidon screamed, clutched at his queue and pulled, thinking he would rip it out.

  “Raidon!”

  The monk paused. Who’d spoken? His grief had broken his mind, and now he hallucinated. The idea of descending into the innocence that madness offered was sickening and appealing in equal measure.

  “Raidon, look to the cemetery entrance,” came a voice from nowhere. The voice had a familiar cadence.

  His overmastering sorrow couldn’t prevent his eyes’ quick flick upward. He saw through the press of clay markers to the cemetery’s granite entry arch.

  A small mob of people poured through the graveyard gate, chanting a slogan over and over, though not in any particular harmony. The unruly group was led by none other than the guard who’d tried to refuse the monk entry into Nathlekh. The guard was not wearing his official tabard of the city—instead, a liquor-stained smock.

  The slogan they chanted abruptly became intelligible to Raidon: “No fey in Nathlekh! No fey in Nathlekh!”

  A distant part of himself was surprised how quickly his desolation ignited to red fury.

  Before he quite realized it, Raidon was striding toward the mob. His hands itched to strike something, and these small-minded bigots had just volunteered to be his targets. That which remained of his training attempted to forestall his path. But Raidon’s impulse would not be quelled.

  Ailyn was dead because he’d failed her. What else mattered?

  When thirty paces separated the mob from Raidon, the guard called for the chant to cease with an upraised fist. He began, “The new kingdom of Nathlan does not accept non-Shou! Especially not Shou with blood polluted by the half-breed elves! I told you before to stay out. Since you were too arrogant to listen, we …” The guard’s shouted speech trailed off. The mob around him continued their inane chant.