by Deck Davis
“You call this being onto him?” said Witas. “Listen, we’ll go to the academy, talk to Ian…”
“And is instructor Irvine gonna believe you? Things don’t sound great between you two.”
“He trusted me enough to send you to me.”
“Do you think he’s onto Henwright too?” said Jakub.
“Ian doesn’t know the meaning of subtlety. Whatever thoughts are in his head, he says them. Don’t keep things bottled up, that’s what he always says. If he thought one of his colleagues was up to something, he’d get up off his arse.”
Jakub wanted something; a clue, a sign from the gods, hell, even a sign from the underworld. Anything to get rid of the dread riding in his chest.
It was the idea that people he didn’t know, people capable of murder, wanted him for something. It was the idea that he had nothing; no names, not even a face he could describe. No motive, no reason…just a damn mask wearing coin collector who knew enough about necromancy to set up this little message.
But a new feeling rose up, one that was hot and that thudded in his mind. Mason D’Angelt had told him that a bunch of robed guys had tried to abduct Abbie, and when they failed, they had blasted her in the face with an acid spell.
It couldn’t be a coincidence, surely, that mysterious robed bastards had tried to abduct Abbie, and then had tried to get him, too?
“Whoever these guys are, they’re going after academy students,” said Jakub.
“We don’t know that. They might just have it out for you. Have you pissed anyone off lately? Wait – stupid question.”
“No, they tried to take someone else from the academy too.”
He explained about what had happened to Abbie, starting from seeing Mason carry her corpse up the Path of Returning, to what the master warlock had told him after Jakub helped him kill the summoner.
“If the robed guys are pointing their tiny, shrivelled, wands at academy students, then the instructors are gonna want to listen,” said Witas. “That seals it. We go and speak to Ian first, and then he can get the other instructors to listen.”
“If we go there with a wild story and nothing else, Irvine can’t do a damn thing. Henwright is the head of necromancy now that Kortho retired, and I told you; he’s so respected that when he talks in his sleep, he’s got people scribbling down in their notepads and thinking it’s gold. We need evidence.”
Witas pointed at the pickpocket. “We’ve got proof here. Both pieces of him.”
“A dead pickpocket? What’s that going to prove?”
“Ian will be able to cast the same spell as you. He’ll see the little show they set up for you.”
“And the guardship are just going to let us carry a corpse out of here? I’ll grab his legs and you can hold his top half, and we’ll just walk out of the door? Not a chance. Besides, even if we took him to the academy, his essence will have left him, and his corpse will be useless. And if we tell Irvine to come here, assuming he’d even agree, it’d still be too late.”
“His corpse will be useless? Gods, you necros are something else. Talking about the boy like he’s a slab of beef that’s gonna spoil. You’re sounding more and more like Ian every minute.”
“It’s the de-”
“Yeah, the ‘let’s turn your heart to stone’ training. Got it.”
“We need proof, Witas, and I need to know who’s coming for me. That starts by putting a name to the robe bastard’s face.”
“The robed bastard who’s face we didn’t see.”
“Well, I’ll settle for a name. Let’s go to the Rats’ Palace and find whoever makes the artificer gum. They might keep a record of who they sell it to, or at least they might be able to tell us something. I just need a shred of something solid so we can get the academy to listen.”
“And here I was, thinking this would be a chance to earn a little coin, and I’d be in the Boarhead by noon. Fine, Jakub, we’ll take a trip to the Rat’s Palace. But first, it’s time for you to see what a Black Cleric can do.”
24
“Go stand by the steps and make sure nobody comes down,” said Witas. “The guards won’t be happy if they see this.”
“Didn’t they bring you in so you could use your cleric stuff?”
“They think magic is just a lot of fancy words and finger pointing. If they see what it really involves, they lose their heads. C’mon, Jakub, you must know what a non-glyph thinks real magic is. They can’t handle the reality.”
“Well, we’re clear for now.”
While listening out for sounds coming from the top of the stairs, Jakub watched Witas work.
The cleric walked toward the gurney, standing above the severed boy. He reached out to his body, then stopped.
He turned away, paced a few steps while breathing deeply and mumbling under his breath.
“You okay?” said Jakub.
“I’m not like you and Ian; I never got used to this stuff. Just takes me a few seconds to work myself up to it. Listen; whatever you see or hear in the next few minutes, don’t say anything. Got it?”
“Hurry up. We’ve been down here a while already; they’re gonna check on us.”
Witas breathed in and approached the boy again. “Come on. Here I go. Sorry about this, kid. A person deserves better.”
He grabbed one of the boys fingers and then snapped it clean off. The crunch caught Jakub by surprise and sent a shudder through him.
“Have you lost your mind?”
“Yeah…that happened a while ago. Shut up a minute.”
Holding the finger in one hand, he took a rounded disc from his pocket and gripped it in the other.
Jakub knew what it was; every discipline of magic, through all their differences, had something in common – they all needed an item to use as a focal point for their magic.
For him it was his soul necklace where he stored his essence, while Mason D’Angelt had the broach that fastened his cape.
Witas’s focal point was this disc; an oval stone with a pattern of scratches on it.
“Foulrugh,” said Witas.
It was a word Jakub had never heard before, but he recognized it as a spellword. Black mist rose from the disc as though it were heating up, and the smell of burning mana hung in the air.
“You call me?” said a voice.
It was a growly voice and it seemed to come from outside the room but within it at the same time. Jakub got a sense it was from somewhere beyond, somewhere deep, and it made his stomach feel heavy to hear it.
“I need you to enchant the finger, Pankratz. Bind it to whoever killed this boy.”
“A costly request.”
“I know our deal by now.”
“How much can I take?” said the voice.
“Enough to make this work.”
“Open yourself to me.”
Witas opened his mouth and breathed in, and the black mist floated into it and then snaked down his throat.
He dropped the finger and the disc and fell to his knees.
The voice laughed, and the sound was so full of menace that Jakub eyed the stairs, with an instinctual part of him telling him to run.
He heard footsteps now; shuffling coming from above. Someone was coming, but he couldn’t tell Witas yet; he couldn’t interrupt whatever the hell this was.
“A pleasure as always, cleric,” said the voice.
The dark aura suddenly left the room. Witas coughed and then he vomited a stream of black tar onto the basement floor.
He retched a few more times. The footsteps above were louder now, and a guard emerged at the top of the stairs.
“You guys done down there?” he said.
The guard began to walk down the steps.
“Give us a minute. Witas can’t be interrupted.”
“Well, hurry up.”
Jakub joined Witas and helped him to his feet. “What the hell was that?”
“The Blacktyde,” said Witas. “Clerics normally draw their power from the Upperlon; o
ne of the light afterlives. I draw mine from the Blacktyde. It’s more powerful, but it has its cost.”
“I heard that thing mention it. What cost?”
“A part of my soul. A sliver of it each time.”
“But that’s what warlocks do.”
“Yeah, we aren’t so different.”
“We better go,” said Jakub. “Our guard friends are coming to check up on us. Tell me what you did, why did you need the finger?”
“Pankratz is the demon I deal with from the Blacktyde. He’s bound the aura of the murder to the boy’s finger. When we’re close to where the boy was actually killed, I’ll know it as long as I have his finger with me.”
“And you lectured me about de-sensitisation? After what you just did?”
“There’s a difference,” said Witas. “When I do it, I feel it. It makes me sick. I don’t desensitize myself from my feelings like you necros. At least I give the dead what they deserve; respect and grief.”
The footsteps sounded behind them now, and a guard was standing by the basement entrance again.
“Captain says you’ve gotta clear out. A wagon carrying oil was set alight, and we’ve got a couple of corpses to bring down here.”
Witas coughed again, then wiped black gunk from his lips. “We were just leaving.”
“Get what you need?”
“Maybe. Tell the captain I’m working on it, but I can’t put my finger on it.”
“So much for respect,” whispered Jakub.
“Yeah, well, people deal with things in different ways. Come on; time to go under the city.”
25 – Hackett Lee
The floors were stained by the boy’s blood. Hackett had gotten on his hands and knees and scrubbed until his arms ached, but he couldn’t get rid of it. It’d stay there now, set on the stone, a reminder of what he’d done.
He stood in the cellar and wished that they’d picked somewhere better for all of this. Although the room was seven feet high, Hackett’s hair brushed the ceiling, and each time his hair touched the stone it reminded him what a freak it was.
Every touch brought back memories of his youth, of the things they’d call him.
Bean-pole.
Long-legged ostrich bitch boy.
Stupid names, yes, but names like that had a habit of getting to a child when he heard them day after day, and especially when they came from classmates who he’d hoped were his friends.
“It’s a gift,” his mother used to tell him. “The Gods gave you more height because you have so much heart that you need more room for it to grow into.”
He knew better now. Whatever heart he had was leaving him, and sometimes when he tried to grasp at it, it fluttered away like a butterfly, always dancing out of reach.
Never mind. There was work to do, and work always made him feel better.
He faced the wall now. He took a piece of chalk from his pocket and drew a rectangle on the stone. Then he held his seashell in his hand and let his mana drift from it, before casting it on the wall.
The stone within the rectangle began to change, transforming until it showed a room, one with lamps glowing and with dozens of scarfs scattered around. A little mouse scurried along the floor, and at the end of the room, a man was sitting by a desk with a piece of cheese near his hands.
Always with the damned cheese. The man was going to have a heart attack.
“Hello, Henwright,” said Hackett.
The man jumped, and Hackett smiled. He loved to appear in the portrait frame unannounced, he loved the shock it gave the instructor.
Henwright turned and faced him, then stood up and approached the portrait.
“You promised me we were done,” said Henwright.
“And you promised me glyphlines. Three of them, to be exact. The last I needed for my shipment. Instead, all I got was a pickpocket who, thanks to your fuck up, has lost his life.”
“Thanks to me? Did I kill him?”
“You might not have held the knife, but blood has a way of splattering in different directions.”
“I gave him the letter. If you couldn’t track him properly, that’s not my fault. We’re done, Hackett.”
“We aren’t done until I have what I need.”
“Gods, just leave me alone, damn it. Why me?”
“Because you were stupid enough to get into debt with the wrong man, and your pathetic academy wages couldn’t pay it.”
“I don’t understand why you won’t leave me alone. It’s not my fault you couldn’t take the girl, and it’s not my fault you didn’t get the novice. What do you get out of this, anyway?”
That was a good question, and one that Hackett had asked himself again and again. What did he get out of this?
How did a once morally-sound mage find himself in the company of a torturer and a rogue necromancer, hurting young magic users to tease the gift from their skin, and then cutting their glyphline tattoos from them?
Henwright wouldn’t understand. Even if Hackett told him how he’d watched his two brothers and his sisters go to the academy while he was left at home, told daily by his father what a failure he was for being the only child in his bloodline born without the gift, the instructor wouldn’t understand.
To know that everyone in your family but you had it; to be told you were worthless, to see your siblings taken away to study with their futures bright, while you were destined to a life of endless normality.
And when Hackett’s gift had finally shown itself, it was too late. It happened like that sometimes; the gift hid until a child’s adolescence, and by then it was too late for the academy to train them.
So, Hackett had sought help from another. While his father scorned him, he’d found a father figure in another man, one who understood what it was like because he too hadn’t seen his gift until it was too late.
If it wasn’t for him, for Bendeldrick, the man who the ignorant people in Dispolis despised, Hackett would never have learned to hone his gifts. He’d have ended up like those old semi-mages you saw; performing cheap tricks for cash like some kind of magical prostitute.
“You wouldn’t understand what I get,” said Hackett. “Just know this; there are people in this world worse than me. Ones who even I have to answer to.”
“Bendeldrick,” said Henwright.
“You’re a clever one. Been at the books again?”
“It didn’t take much to find out, once I found out who you were.”
“Then for the first time, we are on first-name terms. You might even call us friends.”
“Blackmail? Curses? Does that sound like friendship?”
“Friends do not need to like each other; friendship can grow from convenience. Our convenience is this – you procure me another, and I will take away the curse.”
Henwright laughed now. “You already removed it, remember?”
“And I told you; what can be taken, can be given back.”
“No.”
“Look at your arm, instructor.”
Henwright raised his right hand. It was black and his fingers were long, and boils covered his skin.
“Gods, no.”
He lost himself now, stumbled backward, falling onto the floor.
“Get up, man.”
“This isn’t going to end, is it?” said Henwright.
“I need one more. We will find the necromancer ourselves, but by doing that, we leave a bargain unfulfilled. You still owe us a glyphline, Henwright.”
“People are going to start to notice if something happens to another academy student.”
“Just one more,” said Hackett. “Bendeldrick has heard of a new student; a chubby little wizard.”
“Troutan? He’s Mage Wyrecast’s grandson. You don’t think they’ll notice him going missing?”
“Sure. And they’ll hear the sorry truth; that the boy couldn’t live up to his grandfather’s fame, and he ran away from the academy. You went to his room and found his belongings gone. Perhaps he even left a note.”
“You make me sick.”
“And I am also the one who can remedy that sickness. Just one more, Henwright. I have made it easy for you; earlier this afternoon, the academy took a delivery. And among that delivery is an artificed item. It is a…”
26 - Henwright
Henwright didn’t attract much attention when he left his room and went to the lower floors of the academy. Quartermaster Tomkins was gone, no doubt in his own room, drinking away his memories of his poor son.
Being the head of necromancy, Henwright had keys to almost every room in the academy, except the other instructor’s private rooms.
He unlocked the inventory store and found what Hackett had told him about; it was a suitcase. Brown with a floral pattern on the edge, just a normal looking suitcase. Except, this one was artificed to hold more than it should, much like the inventory bags they issued to the students.
This case was magically imbibed to be large enough, once opened, to fit a person, yet would be light enough for him to carry.
Cruel tools for cruel deeds, he said to himself, remembering a passage from Bendeldrick’s book.
He saw nobody as he went back upstairs and to the private room that they had given Troutan Wyrecast.
He paused outside the door.
Calm yourself, he thought. What will it look like if you’re all panicky and out of breath?
This was the last one. It had to be. The curse was back, and this was the only way to remove it, but he wouldn’t let it go on after this.
If Hackett reneged on his promise one last time, Henwright would see him dead. Never mind that he was a powerful mage with an even stronger master; Henwright would see him dead.
As long as the curse didn’t spread too quickly.
“We call it the Vacant Vex,” Hackett had told him. “It’s an old curse; it comes from the trees of the Evergrey Forest. They were sentient once, but they are so old that their senses have left them. Don’t worry, Henwright; it turns your hand oil black, but you can wear a glove to cover it. The real danger is in what it does to your mind – it eats away at it, nibbling a synapse here, a memory there. Keep the curse too long, and your mind will be mulch. But we won’t let that happen, will we?”
