Void's Tale Read online

  I turned and walked straight towards the pimp. He was a weaselly little man, holding a small club in one hand. My anger boiled over. It was bad enough that the bastard was exploiting the poor girl, working her to death just so he could have a few more coins, but ... he was trying to rob her customers, too. He must have seen death in my eyes, because he started to scramble back. It was too late. Far too late. Magic boiled around me. He shrank, melting into a slug. I raised my foot and held it over him, ready to bring it down. He had to be scared out of his mind.

  I stepped back, then squatted in front of his tiny form. “Understand this,” I growled. “You’ll be human again soon, but the spell will linger. If you hit her or steal from her or abandon her or do anything to her she doesn’t want, you’ll become a slug again. And that transformation will be permanent. You will take good care of her, and you will find her a place to stay that will actually give her a proper life. You will not leave her unsupported. This is your only chance.”

  My anger threatened to boil over. I twisted the spells, making sure he’d be his normal self quickly, then stood and walked away. It wasn’t much, but it was all I could do. The poor girl wouldn’t have much hope of finding a better life before her body finally collapsed, yet ... maybe she’d have a chance. She could become a servant or a seamstress or something - anything - that might give her a hope of actually making a reasonable living. And if the pimp ever lifted a hand to her again, it would be the end. She could stomp on him, like I’d threatened to do, or simply walk away. I doubted he’d last long, as a slug. He certainly wouldn’t be doing anyone anymore harm.

  I calmed down as I walked. The taverns were emptying now. I saw hundreds of men making their ways back home, no doubt fearing the worst. The guardsmen kept their distance. The whore was right, I decided. There was something creepy about their professionalism. The prince might be a good leader, but ... he hadn’t had any real opportunity to prove himself. His kingdom wasn’t going to attack any of its neighbours. They barely had the resources to protect themselves.

  And I’ve wasted enough time, I thought, as I turned and walked deeper into the magical quarter. It’s time to take a look at that shop.

  Chapter Four

  Mistress Layla had clearly been successful, I decided, as I cloaked myself in shadow and stood in front of her shop. It was a two-story building, standing alone instead of part of a larger apartment block. That wasn’t uncommon amongst the more interesting alchemists, who tended to prefer some distance between themselves and their neighbours, but it didn’t fit what I’d been told of her. My lips quirked in sour amusement. Lord Ashworth was too ignorant of the real world to realise when he was being scammed. He probably thought no one would dare to try. Someone might have simply told him what he wanted to hear ...

  I pushed the thought aside as I stepped up to the door and tested the wards. My first impression had been correct. The wards were common, too much so. The design was just too well understood for safety, not when there were hundreds of magicians who knew how to break them. There were none of the little tweaks that would have made cracking the wards far harder, even for me. They were either shielding something more complex - and dangerous - or they’d been thrown together by someone who didn’t give much of a damn. I didn’t like the implications, if the latter was true. An alchemist’s shop could be very dangerous. Her stockpile of ingredients might be on the verge of exploding.

  The wards glittered around my fingertips as I pressed them against the door. It was easy to insert my magic into the spellware, then weaken them enough to unlock the door. The mundane lock was tougher, but I had no trouble casting a spell to mimic a key long enough to get inside. I expected the interior wards to snap at me, the moment I pushed the door open with my foot, but there were none. I was almost disappointed. The apothecary was a magician’s place of power, her home. She could have spent the last few years weaving every possible defensive spell into her wards. Didn’t she care, in the slightest, about her own safety?

  I muttered a night-vision spell and looked around. The ground floor seemed to be no different from any other apothecary. There was a solid wooden counter, the wood scorched and pitted, in front of a place for the shopkeeper and shelves that should have been groaning under the weight of countless ingredient jars. They were empty, the jars taken away by ... by who? My eyes narrowed as I inched forward, keeping a wary eye out for traps. Mistress Layla had lived and worked alone, without even a shopgirl. She could have made sure that anyone who crossed the counter wouldn’t have had a chance to regret it. But there was nothing. I checked the cash drawer underneath the counter and frowned. There was enough money in plain sight, utterly unprotected, to feed a family for a month. And yet it had been left untouched?

  Strange, I thought. Who would steal the potions ingredients, but not the money?

  My puzzlement grew as I pushed the curtain aside and stepped into the rear chamber. It was a brewing room and a spellchamber, wrapped into one. Mistress Layla had carved runes and spell circles into the stone floor, then covered them with wooden brewing tables. It was careless, to say the least. The risk of an accident was just too high - and she was experienced enough to know it. And yet ... my eyes wandered the room. The shelves of ingredients had been emptied, too, jars carried away by ... by who? There were a handful of scrolls on one of the shelves, but no books. It was unlikely Mistress Layla had owned anything really interesting, yet ... I inspected the scrolls, quickly. There was nothing new or dubious amongst them. The apothecary didn’t seem to suit her at all.

  I worked my way through the room, careful not to step into any of the circles. It was hard to escape the impression that the chamber had already been searched once, by someone who had known precisely what they were doing. They might not have touched the money, but they’d certainly taken anything they deemed useful. And they’d done it without making a terrible mess. Mistress Layla herself? Had she left of her own free will?

  She didn’t stay in touch with Lord Ashworth, I reminded myself. I knew the man. He was the sort of man who’d ask for a progress report at the worst possible time, heedless of the fact that giving the progress report would take time from actually working. Mistress Layla might have known it too. If she’d gone elsewhere, surely she would have told him something.

  I finished searching the ground floor, then found the stairs and slipped up to the living quarters. Mistress Layla had slept there. There should have been an entire web of wards, designed to deter everything from spies to kidnappers. And yet, the door was unmarked by magic. It crossed my mind to wonder if Mistress Layla had lived somewhere else. It wasn’t impossible, given how little effort had been put into warding the apothecary. But it would have been odd ...

  The bedroom loomed in front of me. I tensed, remembering the spells my female cousins had been taught to protect their privacy as well as their property. The female students at Whitehall had learnt a great many more. And yet, there were none. I gritted my teeth as I pushed the door open, peering into a room that looked as if the occupant had got up, prepared for a perfectly normal day ... and then simply never came home. I inched inside, looking around carefully. A handful of dresses and tunics hung from a rack, twinned with basic underclothes. They looked very simple, wool and linen rather than furs or velvet. Mistress Layla clearly couldn’t be bothered wearing the clothes appropriate for her rank. My lips quirked. I had the feeling I would have liked her ...

  You might still, I reminded myself. You don’t know she’s dead.

  I glanced into the water closet and frowned. There were a handful of jars resting by the sink, but nothing else. A bucket of stagnant water sat beside a metal tub. Mistress Layla hadn’t needed more than a simple tub to wash herself, apparently. There was no hot or cold running water. The chamber pot had been cleaned, then abandoned. I swept the room quickly, then walked back into the bedroom. There should have been a sense of her magic, perhaps even her personality, lingering where she’d slept. But there was nothing. It was hard to be
lieve the room was hers.

  The bed has clearly been used, I told myself, firmly. There were definite signs of her presence. Most magicians knew better than to leave their blood lying around, particularly women, but hairs could be just as useful. I collected a handful of red hairs and concealed them in my cloak, then continued the search. She lived here before she vanished.

  I was starting to lose heart, but I kept searching anyway. The drawer under the bed contained a pair of old chemises, both cleaned and pressed and then simply abandoned. I checked underneath them and found nothing, save for a little dust. The rest of the room was just as uninformative. Mistress Layla had been completely devoted to her art. She hadn’t spent any time, as far as I could tell, doing anything else. And yet, why hadn’t she been researching instead of working in her shop? It wasn’t as if she didn’t have the intellect. Or the resources.

  She could have hired a couple of shopgirls and put them in charge of the counter while she did her research, I mused, as I checked the final room. It was completely empty. Did she spend all her time on the counter?

  I shook my head slowly. It made no sense. The apothecary had clearly been doing very well. I found it hard to imagine the owner not hiring help. There were plenty of spells that could be used to enforce loyalty and discretion ... hell, the local womenfolk would probably be glad of the job. The whore I’d helped would jump at a chance to earn a better living. Why had she wasted her time? Perhaps ... perhaps she hadn’t. Perhaps she’d been up to something ...

  I probably need to find someone who knows her, I thought. It wouldn’t be easy. The community was clearly on guard. Did anyone know her well?

  The thought bothered me as I made my way downstairs. The magical community wasn’t very tight-knit. There was no shortage of magicians who simply walked away to set up on their own, unmonitored by anyone. Mistress Layla could have done the same, yet ... why abandon the shop? She could have sold it to an up-and-coming apothecary, if she wished. It would not be hard to find a buyer. And yet ...

  Someone must have come here, after she vanished, and searched the place, I thought. It was hard to imagine the guardsmen not taking the money, while taking the ingredients ... why had they taken the ingredients? They hadn’t just taken the expensive or dangerous jars, the ones they might be able to sell; they’d taken them all. It wouldn’t have been easy to empty the apothecary without being noticed. Someone would have seen something ... surely. They came, they searched, they stole ... and then they set up the wards.

  My eyes narrowed as I put the pieces together. Someone - a magician, probably more than one - had raided the shop. They were either responsible for Mistress Layla’s disappearance or they’d moved to take advantage of it before word got out. They’d taken everything they could carry, including jars that were worth far more than the money in the counter, and then set up the wards to cover their tracks. It made a certain kind of sense. Magicians would know the scrolls in the back room were useless. And stealing the clothes in the bedroom would be pointless. They were just too plain. No one would pay for them.

  I found the ledgers and scanned through them. Mistress Layla had kept very good notes - something all alchemists had in common if they wanted to survive. The shop had been bringing in plenty of money, easily enough to hire a shopgirl or purchase some of the rarer and more powerful ingredients. It looked as if Mistress Layla had been a purchasing agent as well as an alchemist, obtaining supplies for some of the other sorcerers in the town and selling them at a handsome price. If I was reading the ledgers correctly, she’d managed to double her profits time after time. I made a careful note of the names, of who’d purchased what. They were prime suspects, although ... I snorted. It was hard to tell what - if anything - they might be doing. I had a list of what they’d purchased from the apothecary, but ... there were just too many possible combinations. If I’d had those ingredients, I could have churned out anything from a lust potion to a regeneration brew.

  And they probably bought more ingredients elsewhere, I thought. There were three other apothecaries in town. They could have hidden what they wanted by sourcing their ingredients from multiple shops.

  Something rattled on the door. “This is the guard! Open up!”

  I jumped to my feet, cursing under my breath as the door began to shake. I’d been seen. Somehow. The neighbours must have noticed me or ... perhaps I’d missed something when I’d unpicked the wards. Whoever had cast it might have sensed my intrusion and alerted the guards, keeping me from completing my mission. I darted to the stairwell and braced myself, pulling the shadows around me as the guardsmen crashed into the shop. They looked alert, clubs at the ready. I forced myself to think as I grabbed the ledgers and shoved them into my cloak. I could go through the guardsmen like a knife through butter, but that would draw attention. Whoever had raided the shop after its owner had vanished would know something was wrong.

  I sneaked up the stairwell, hurrying to the rear room. There were no visible guards behind the apothecary, but that was meaningless. A competent force would post guardsmen covering all possible escape routes. I heard clumping feet coming up the stairs behind me and knew I didn't have much time. The bastards had probably already stolen the money from the counter. I shaped a spell in my mind, then cast a glamour over me. My voice, when I spoke, sounded just like my paternal grandmother. She’d never liked me or my brothers.

  “How dare you enter a witch’s house?” I boomed. Magic curved around me, lashing out at the men on the stairs. “Men, be toads!”

  There was a blinding flash of light, followed by outraged croaking and sniggering as the transformed men fell back down the stairs. Their untransformed fellows were laughing, as if it was funny. I directed another spell at them, one I’d learnt back at school. Their legs started to dance of their own accord. All of a sudden, the joke was a lot less funny.

  “Be gone!” I shouted, still in my grandmother’s voice. I cast a handful of illusions, shadowy images of a female form. “Leave this place if you want to be men again!”

  I threw one final spell, then opened the window and threw myself into the air. Flying was dangerous when there were other magicians around - I’d learnt it well after I’d left Whitehall - but it was the quickest way to escape. I flew over the streets, ducking low as soon as I could and landing in an alley. The guardsmen sounded as if they weren’t sure what to do - it was odd they’d broken into a sorceress’s house without magicians of their own - but I wrapped an invisibility spell around myself as I trudged back to the marketplace. The travellers would be sleeping. I hoped that meant I could sneak back to the caravan without being interrupted. But if I disturbed someone ...

  The night still felt dark and fearful. There was no one on the streets, not even the omnipresent guards. The sounds from the distant apothecary were fading as my spells wore off. It would take some time for the guardsmen to work up the nerve to walk back into the shop or report failure to their master. If they stayed where they were until morning, who knew what would happen? The magical community might assume the guards were behind the vanishings and start hurling curses at them.

  I frowned, doubtfully. Could the guards be behind the disappearances? It wasn’t impossible, but I couldn’t think of a motive. Was it political? I was pretty sure children weren’t involved in politics. I could imagine children being taken to put pressure on their families, but why bother when the families weren’t worth the effort? The more I thought about it, the less sense it made. It was far more likely that the guardsmen - and their masters - were trying to cover up their own failures. Unless I was missing something ...

  The marketplace rose in front of me. The travellers had erected dozens of wards, all linked to their caravans. I pushed through them, frowning as I spotted the statues. In the gloom, it was easy to believe they were moving when I wasn’t looking. I told myself not to be silly as I reached Gabby and Juliana’s caravan, then checked the space between the wheels. My bedding was already waiting. I grinned - Juliana had made it
clear I wouldn’t be sharing the caravan with them at bedtime and I didn’t blame her - and then unrolled it. There was little more I could do, not until sunlight. I’d have to visit Mistress Layla’s clients, then try to use her hair to determine if I could find her that way. And then ...

  I had no idea. I supposed it depended on what I found. If she’d left willingly ... or not. If she’d fallen to the darkness ... there were spells and rites, the darkest of the dark, that needed human sacrifice, but I couldn’t think of anything that needed over eighty victims. No wonder people had started thinking about necromancy. The other options were actually worse. And if Mistress Layla was just another victim ... what did that mean?

  Someone could have reported her missing, I thought. Another possible explanation crossed my mind. The guardsmen - more accurately, their sorcerers - could have searched her house, confiscated her ingredients and then sealed the building until they knew what had happened to her. And then I triggered an alarm when I broke the wards.

  The thought mocked me. It was a possibility, but ... it made no sense. The guards would have taken the money. The guards would have ripped the shop to pieces, just for a few extra coins. They wouldn’t have left it behind for whoever took over the store. And I couldn’t believe they hadn’t found the money, either. They would have known where to look.