by Cate Glass
As he told the story, I fingered my luck charm … and its graven symbol of Teo’s family—the Vodai, mages who took their power from water. We had thought the charms might protect us from a sniffer’s magic. More likely they shielded us in some way from the sniffer’s demon.
As Placidio’s narrative ended, Dumond ruffled his thinning hair. “By the Great Anvil,” he whispered. “What a nasty stew.”
Neri’s brow had wrinkled tighter with every word Placidio spoke, and as soon as the narrative was complete, he could no longer contain himself. “So, Dono, you can’t simply refuse to make sniffers, because you’ll die or worse. Then your da’ll find some other sorcerer to take up your job, and that sorcerer might not be able to prevent the Enemy walking right into his body and slaughtering whoever steps in his way, because you’ve worked at keeping the monster out of you for a very long time and are damned good at that part of it—when you don’t let the villain have you on purpose.”
“Yes.”
“But if you keep on doing your nasty job, you’ll have to feed the monster, else you’ll get stuck with a thousand demons in your head who won’t leave. Then you go crazy or worse, and perhaps the Enemy walks right back into you like it did yesternight, and you can’t do anything about it.”
“Yes.”
“Yet you would like to be able to stay on in the Confraternity—in good grace, as to say—because it gives you the chance to clean up the wickedness your da has played, like buying young folk from the Cavalieri and murdering bookbinders. And because you are his loyal son, you think you could get the goods on him and stop it.”
“Exactly so.”
I was awestruck. So clear. Right to the point. Enough that it told me what question had to come next. “Why do you have to send some of the demons to Macheon and some go willing to the pool? You said the other man, Zattiglia, would always send them back to the pool.”
“The entities are not”—Dono searched for the word—”raindrops or leaves. They are individuals. Without name or memory of themselves or the world, but distinct from each other. They know the words of summoning give them a chance for a new life of their own. They recognize the ritual: the fire, the blood, the presence of a warm body that will not fight them and could give them a chance to live and breathe. That is a lure that is irresistible. They knew Zattiglia, the man I replaced, and they know I am different from him. From the moment I entered the pérasma to watch Guillam transformed, they recognized that I was bound to the one you name Macheon—the Enemy—Dragonis. To be with their maker is their uttermost desire. Some—more each time—refuse to return to the pool or anywhere but their maker. They learn.”
“Spirits,” I said, understanding. Macheon, the Dragoni mage, stripped the spirits from living humans, then cut and trimmed and twisted them to loyalty and obedience. Teo had even said that demons were not purposeful evildoers. They yearned only for warmth and purpose. “So, Dono, do you … experience … the same individuals every time?”
Donato’s eyes fell shut in that now familiar retreat. But his body did not sag. “I’ve been doing this since I was fourteen. Rare is the day I feel a new entity. There are thousands of them. Tens of thousands. So even that rarity could just be one I’ve not noticed before.”
“So all of them are particular to this hot spring.” Demons drift, Teo had told us, but once they found a good place they had no motive to leave but for a better one. “When you’ve summoned them as you did tonight, are all of them inside you?”
“It’s impossible to know. I make the summoning as brief as possible … to prevent that. They are so very many … so very hungry…”
Unimaginable. And yet it—and the cool bronze of my luck charm—led me onward. “How long can you hold them before sending them on to a victim or to Macheon or back to the pool?”
I’d never seen his lids pop open so fast or so wide. “How long? I never—why would you ask that?”
“Because I have an idea. Neri laid out your problem quite succinctly. We have to separate those demons from that spring.”
I’d not thought Donato’s complexion could pale any further. “You want me to summon them … all of them, and then hold … carry them with me.” The words could scarce squeeze past his horror. “To where?”
A plan was forming. Desperate, but perhaps just possible. “There’s a place that might work. I know it would be terrible for you. Dreadful. But you’ve shown us your strength and your control, and we would help in every way we could. Could you do it? An hour? Two, maybe?”
“Two hours…” He might well have said eternity. “And at the end of that … what?”
No need to say what we all knew. At the end of that, the Enemy would be waiting for his feeding and for Dono, too, and what strength would Dono have left to resist?
“I have an idea about that, as well,” I said. Teo had told me—in things he said, and things he did not say. Unless I was entirely wrong. This would be a wicked gamble, but the only way I could see to accomplish the most important things. “A way to lure them out and eliminate them.”
I didn’t force an answer. Dono hadn’t said no, so I continued.
“That would leave you intact and returned to your family and your … position. The demons would be gone from the pérasma and only you would know. Perhaps, we could even find a way to render this spring unwelcoming to demons in the future—the drifters, those dispersed by earthquakes or volcanoes.”
“Easiest to just bring down the damnable place to start with,” said Dumond. “The structure was well-built—in perfect equilibrium—but some sapping and a careful application of nitre powder and it’s a ruin. Without anyone having to carry demons around.”
“No good if the demons are still in residence,” said Placidio. “The Confraternity would rebuild the structure. Begin the cursed practice again. Am I right?”
Donato acknowledged it.
“And it would be awfully suspicious to do it right when Dono returns home,” I said. “But perhaps we could pour or drop something in to sour it so no passing demons would settle there.”
“We know someone might be able to help with that,” said Neri. “When I told Livia you were going to a place smelled like rotted eggs, she was surprised. Said no one told her there was a hot spring at the villa. I guess she’s seen lots of them on her travels. Seemed to think they were fine for bathing and good for the skin and all manner of hurts unless they were too cold or too hot, in which case something had to be done.”
His recitation was a perfect rendition of Livia. Worth a laugh on any other day.
“Colder might do it,” I said. “So maybe she knows what that might be. Fetch her, Neri. Bring her through the graveyard like Dono showed us and up to the villa wall. Do you remember the place? Dumond can meet you there. Dono says we have at most two hours until people start leaving the ceremonies.” This could be our only chance for Livia and Dumond to see the pool.
“I’ll meet them at the piggery and get the girl up here,” said Dumond. “Ottone’s genial little ass should be right where I left him outside the wall. You three sort out the demons. We’ll figure out how to make their nest unwelcome.”
Neri was gone in an instant. Dumond glared at me from under his scrub-brush brows as if he had guessed the terrifying notion that had come to me. “You won’t decide anything … final … until we’re back, yes?”
Must reading thoughts be added to Dumond’s growing list of extraordinary skills?
“We have to think it out,” I said. “But I’ll need you to— We need a change of clothes and some extra weapons cached. And I believe we’re going to need a boat under the bridge. It would allow one of us to keep watch for praetorians readying an ambush.” And other possibilities.
“I can see to the boat and Vash to the supplies.” Dumond fired his new doorway that should take him back to the matching one between the buttresses of the Villa Giusti wall. A few moments and both had vanished.
“You’re certain no sniffers are inside the vi
lla walls, Donato?” I said, imagining the steady rumbling of Dumond’s power, and the darts of bright magic that had brought my brother inside and taken him out again.
Donato yet stood with his back to the wall, arms wrapped tightly about himself. But his shoulders and his head drooped with every appearance of sleep. “No sniffers within the walls as yet,” he whispered. “I always know when they’re near. Their demons … call out to me.”
“Mother Gione’s heart!” Those threads … those voices. Dono paid harshly for his power. “So sniffers that are made in other places are seeded with demons, too.”
“This is the only place in the Costa Drago where we do this work. So, in essence, yes.”
“Aye. And therein lies a difficulty, young Dono.” Placidio yet stood beside the ladder, back slumped against a roof support. His powerful hands fingered his unsheathed dagger. An idle pose by appearance, but I’d not have challenged him on any matter at that moment. “You want to continue in your work to give you time to expose your father’s crimes. But what of the Confraternity’s crimes? Is our young friend who just departed, a youth who can draw a smile even from you who has likely not smiled ten times in his life, ever going to lie on that stone table of yours in extremis?”
“If there are no demons left—”
“The Confraternity made sniffers long before they understood why those made here were more effective than those made elsewhere.” The dagger had fallen still.
Dono raised his head, allowing us to see the trouble in his face. “That’s true. If I can return here uncompromised in my father’s eyes, I will hold the office of the First Defender of Truth. If the demons are gone, I will have the use of my mind, as well as time and authority to investigate. In any case, my position gives me final say over any candidate. Even my father must yield to my judgment. He raised me apurpose for this work and has no doubt of my loyalty. He believes me too cowardly and weak to choose any course he would oppose.”
“So you might save Neri, but you would still condemn other young sorcerers to mutilation and slavery or send them on to the Executioner,” I said.
I could not be entirely surprised at that. I no longer thought Donato at all weak or cowardly, but precepts of a lifetime, loyalties so deeply ingrained, could not change instantly.
For me, it made no difference to this plan. I did not take this risk for Donato alone, but for our city and the world that would suffer if the Enemy was unleashed. For Livia, and my oath to her friend Marsilia that I would keep the girl alive. And for Teo’s people, who must groom someone to replace him in duties beyond understanding. Teo had thought the danger at Perdition’s Brink worth risking his own safety. His life. Spirits …
Grief threatened to shroud my every thought and word—like a sheath of green silk that separated one from the living world. How could he be dead?
“Please understand.” Dono looked at each of us in turn, his dark brows knit tight. “I’ve never encountered any sorcerers like your vanishing brother, and that quiet man who paints magic, and the two of you. Despite what you may think, not all of your kind—our kind—are so thoughtful about their workings. I’ve witnessed horrors beyond my own. Heard testimony of others. And even if I trust your word that this Enemy does not have power over all sorcerers, how can you deny that there is danger in what we are? All I can promise is that I will look deeper. Be more careful, more thoughtful. Assuming I have eyes or mind by the end of this night.”
“Forcing a man to live as a sniffer is evil and inhuman, whether or not you put a demon in him. Our position on that will not change,” I said, “assuming we have minds to judge with by the end of this night.”
“Just thought we should have matters clear,” said Placidio. “Shall we hear out my partner’s plan?”
27
THE FEAST OF THE LONE PRAETORIAN
AVANCI BRIDGE, NORTH TOWER
MIDNIGHT
The Feast of the Lone Praetorian celebrated a victory over a sorcerers’ uprising three centuries past—the last such rebellion. Whatever magics those sorcerers possessed had not saved them from their fate; even the dead ones were bound in chains so that the Executioner of the Demon Tainted could throw them from his cliff into the sea—the only ending considered certain for our kind. Only Teo had made me believe a dead sorcerer might not be entirely dead. But as I gazed from the North Tower parapet out over Cantagna and its great river, bathed in the light of the full moon, and willed my friend to speak to me, the world remained silent, its colors reduced to gray and every shade of black.
He was truly dead.
There would be time later to mourn, if the night went well. Even so, I could not shed the loss; the gamble I planned was grounded in logic, but no one could tell me if it was possible. Teo could have. Teo could have made it work. But his teaching would have to carry me through. That and my partners. The four of you, he’d said, bearing each other upon your shoulders …
I yanked at the ropes binding the bridge warden I had blindsided with a risqué song, a sloppy kiss, and a flask of wine thoroughly laced with Vashti’s sleeping drops. The knots held tight; the warden slept peacefully.
The sleeping drops and rope were only two of the treasures Vashti had left for us on the stair hidden inside one of the bridge’s mold-blackened abutments. The Shadow Lord had shown me that stairway, one of his many private byways through the city he loved, when I was fifteen and still terrified of him. It had been a moonlit night like this one when we had first strolled across the Avanci Bridge. From this vantage, the graceful footbridge appeared like a ribbon of starless midnight stretched tight across the sparkling water.
Tonight Sandro’s stairway held changes of clothes for all of us, more ropes, two flasks of ale, wound dressings, blankets, spare weapons. Vashti’s six sand-filled bags, their type and weight a match for those I’d specified for the ransom had been there. They now sat waiting a few steps away from me.
Donato was tucked away down in that hidden stairwell, too, the chaos of the frenzied demon horde inside him contained from bursting through his skin by naught but a few loops of rope and his iron discipline. He had cut his forehead to ensure he had plenty of blood to entice them, and he had sung his ritual summoning for half an hour to be sure to get them all.
Placidio and Livia kept watch on him. I had volunteered to take the tower post, as I could no longer bear to see his agony—expecting his face to shatter like an overripe carcass at any moment to reveal the horror within. Please the universe and every being within it, the night’s result would be worth that pain.
Livia fidgeted, believing she could sour the pérasma with time and the right materials. Tonight we had neither. If we failed, it might not matter.
A sharp rap on the thick wood door in the tower’s center turret sent me across the short radius of the rooftop. I pressed my back to the curved wall beside the door. Two more raps … a delay … and a third. Breathing again, I responded with a double rap of my own, then returned to my watchpost.
Neri joined me, his black hood raised. He stood carefully close so we would appear to be the same shadow to any observer. “Nothing yet?”
“No movement at all,” I said. No ransom had been deposited on the bridge. That left me—and my partners who lurked in the secret stairway or bobbed in the little dinghy tied up in the deep shadows under the bridge—stalled breathless at the brink of the Abyss after two frantic hours racing to get there.
“Dono’s in a bad way.”
“But still holding?” I said.
“Don’t know how.”
I knew how. He had refused to ingest any herb or potion that could dull his mind or sap his will. He believed full control of himself would be the only way to prevent yielding to the Enemy’s allurements. But by the time we got here his flesh was already too hot to touch. While Livia sponged his brow and whispered encouragement, Placidio stood guard, his attention riveted on Donato rather than any threat from the Confraternity. That watch was left to me here atop the tower and to Dumond
far below in a borrowed dinghy, from which he could see the water and the river path as he pretended to fish. And to Neri, who was everywhere.
“What if the Confraternity bastards—?” I silenced Neri with a touch.
A shadow … three shadows … topped the steps that ascended from the riverside path and entered the tunnel under the Tower that led onto the bridge. Three figures emerged onto the bridge. Good. They had not left one behind to obstruct our path.
I tapped Neri’s hand three times to call attention and felt him nod in acknowledgment.
The bridge lamps had not been lit tonight—no coincidence—but not a circumstance to prevent our moving forward. The full moonlight silhouetted the newcomers against the dark bridgework. Dark-colored ankle-length gowns—Confraternity gowns?—swirled as they hurried to the exact center of the span and deposited several pale objects the right size for a miller’s standard small portion of flour. Number, position, and kind were exactly as my message had specified. But as two of the three hurried onward to the far side of the river, one remained with the bags.
I cursed under my breath and scoured my memory for the exact words I’d written. No praetorians, wardens, or constables on the river path, in boats, in the Bottoms, on the bridge tower. Had I truly not specified the damnable bridge itself? As I’d held a dagger at his throat, the overwhelmed tower warden had whimpered that he was just finishing his supper before vacating his watch as ordered. The small basket with the remains of bread and sausage had testified in his behalf. So I’d assumed our adversaries were complying with our terms. Now I was not so sure.
No tower, but two lampposts marked the far-side terminus of the Avanci. It was too far to judge if the other two persons remained between the lampposts. But I’d best assume so. Steps descended steeply from the terminus into the crowded jumble of shanties, stables, and warehouses called the Bottoms. We had always assumed the Confraternity would hide praetorians or Gardia near the stair, ready to swarm the bridge as soon as we tried to leave with the money bags.
