Void's Tale Read online

  Which suggests the kidnapper is picking his targets very carefully, I thought. He hadn’t shown so much care in choosing his mundane targets, but he hadn’t needed to take so many precautions. There was no hope of tracking those victims down through magic. And that means he’s a member of the community.

  I paced the streets, gathering intelligence. There were always gossips willing to talk, with or without magical inducements, although not everything they said was true. I asked questions, listened carefully to the answers ... and drew a blank. There were a number of magicians who could have kidnapped the missing people, but none of them seemed to have any real motive. The victims were just too diverse. My imagination suggested a number of possibilities, from the disgusting and vile to so dark that no one in their right mind would even consider them, but none seemed to quite make sense. And there were just too many victims.

  And everyone is on their guard now, I thought. The shops and magical houses were even more heavily warded. It felt as if the entire city was under siege. The kidnappers might have just decided to wait for everyone to relax before starting operations again.

  I didn’t like the idea, I decided as I made my way back to the marketplace. A necromancer needed an endless supply of victims, if he wanted to remain alive. I’d yet to encounter one who didn’t. If there was a necromancer close by, he’d have to keep searching for victims to sacrifice even if it did mean attracting attention. Someone else ... they could have simply pulled in their horns to wait or moved on. They could have teleported halfway around the world, if they wished. The people on the other side of the continent wouldn’t have any idea of what was happening in Yolanda. The world had gotten a lot bigger since the empire collapsed and the kingdoms started to emerge.

  There were fewer people browsing the stalls than I’d expected, I noted. The travellers looked thoroughly displeased. They were the freest people in the world, they claimed, and yet even they needed to make a profit. Half of them were already packing up their stores, preparing to resume the journey. The remainder looked inclined to join them, rather than waiting one more day. I understood, all too well. The risk of being attacked by an angry mob was growing by the hour. The guardsmen weren’t going to put themselves at risk to save the travellers.

  “Someone was probing the wards, last night,” Juliana said, as I reached her stall. Gabby was nowhere to be seen. “They poked and prodded, then backed off.”

  “Interesting,” I said. A frisson of alarm shot through me. “Where’s Gabby?”

  “In the caravan,” Juliana said. She jerked a finger towards the door. “She’s got to practice her numbers.”

  I nodded in amusement. Commoners were generally discouraged from learning to read, write and do sums. The guilds did their level best to crack down on everyone who tried to learn on their own, even though there simply weren’t enough scribes and accountants to go around. It had always struck me as pointless. Merchants needed to do basic accounting in their heads. They certainly couldn’t join the guilds, let alone study for years before they could call themselves accountants. And they didn’t need to spend years studying to know that two plus two equalled four.

  But the more advanced the sums, the harder it is to do them without tablet and chalk, I reminded myself. And ...

  A thought struck me. What if I set a trap? What if ...?

  I looked at Juliana. “Are you going to be staying overnight?”

  “One more night, then we’re leaving,” Juliana said. She waved a hand at the stall. Normally, she should have sold everything within a few hours. Her charms were very simple - and some were borderline frauds - but there was never any shortage of demand. I’d known students at Whitehall who’d supplemented their monthly allowances by selling enchanted artefacts to passing customers. Now, half her trade goods were still clearly visible. “We’re just not bringing anything like enough money.”

  She looked at me. “Will you be staying with us?”

  “One more night,” I said, echoing her. My mind was elsewhere. “I’ll leave you tomorrow.”

  Juliana nodded. I saw a hint of relief in her eyes. I wasn’t exactly a welcome guest. I’d be a great deal less welcome if she knew I wasn’t even a distant relative. It was possible - my father had been vague on precisely where he’d found my mother - but there was no way to be sure. I certainly couldn’t start testing our blood to determine if we were actually relatives, not without giving her a way to break out of the mental maze. Once she started questioning the charm, it would break.

  And if you knew what I had in mind, I thought, you’d order me to leave at once.

  The plan came together as I helped her prepare lunch. Juliana and Gabby were ideal targets for the mystery kidnapper. They had magic, but not much magic. They had no close relatives within the travellers ... hell, they were clearly slightly unwelcome within the convoy, as they’d been placed on the edge of the marketplace. And half the convoy would be leaving within an hour or so. The mystery kidnapper had taken magicians far more powerful than Juliana. She’d make an excellent target. So would Gabby. She hadn’t come into her magic yet, but that would only make her more desirable. I’d killed a magician - once - for turning magical children into monsters. The thought of that happening again ...

  I felt a twinge of guilt, which I rapidly suppressed. Using Juliana and Gabby as bait was low, but there didn’t seem to be any other options. I couldn’t start searching homes or castles at random. All I really knew about the kidnapper was that he was a powerful magician. There were just too many possible suspects. I had to put them at risk, for the good of the Allied Lands. I told myself, as I wove more and more spells of protection around the caravan, that I could keep them safe. The kidnapper wouldn’t see anything waiting, nothing beyond basic wards, until it was far too late.

  And someone has been probing the wards, I thought, coldly. They might have already selected them as possible targets.

  The thought didn’t soothe my conscience as the hours wore on. I played a handful of games with Gabby, taking the opportunity to weave a couple of spells around her, then watched as two-thirds - not half - of the convoy departed, heading to the gates and freedom. The remainder huddled together, as if they expected to be attacked at any moment. I was silently relieved that Juliana had taken the time to set up proper wards, making it harder for her to move the caravan without taking them down and putting them back up again. The easier it looked to approach the caravan, the more likely we’d draw attention. And yet, it wouldn’t be enough. I needed to spread the word as far as possible.

  “I’ll pack up here,” Juliana said, as night started to fall. “You go have fun.”

  I nodded, making a show of reluctance that wasn’t meant to fool her. I didn’t want her to call me back, after all. Instead, I strode away, carefully planning my next move. There’s an art to spreading rumours, ones you want to catch fire and spread from one end of the town to the other. The trick is to make the rumours plausible, interesting and just a little outrageous ... but not too outrageous. It was easy enough to spread a rumour about the king’s son being a bastard, in the literal sense of the word, yet impossible to convince people that the queen gave birth to twin sows. They might laugh - it was often the only way the common folk could get back at their tormentors - but they wouldn’t believe. Why should they?

  A pair of guardsmen eyed me darkly as I walked past them and into an alleyway. I twisted my glamour as soon as they were out of sight, emerging from the far end in the guise of a travelling handyman. They were really nothing more than apprentice travellers, doing all the nasty jobs while - in theory - training to own and operate a travelling shop or convoy themselves. It was a glamorous job, as seen from the outside. The reality was a little different. Long hours, low wages, corporal punishment from angry masters, no guarantee of actually making enough money to set up for oneself ...

  But at least they get to travel, I reminded myself. Most commoners never go more than a few miles from their hometowns.

 
I walked into a tavern, ordered a drink and sat down. It didn’t take long for me to be joined by a handful of youngsters, all boys save for a girl dressed as a boy. I wondered who she thought she was fooling. She might have gotten away with it in a big city, but in a place where everyone knew everyone else it would be hard to maintain the disguise. I guessed she was planning to run away, as soon as she was confident in her presentation.

  “So,” one of them said, trying to be suave and not bringing it off, “what’s it like, being on the road?”

  “Well,” I said. “This could take a long time ...”

  I allowed myself a shit-eating grin, then started to talk. I knew enough about the life to tell a convincing story, with particular attention on Juliana and Gabby. It was simple to bitch and moan about her, to imply she hexed and cursed people at the drop of a hat ... particularly handymen who tried to get into her underclothes. My audience giggled as I fed them lines about a bitchy witch and an even more bratty daughter, both extremely unpopular within the travelling community. I didn’t need more than a little magic to convince them to spread the word. It would be all over town by midnight.

  “She turned me into a rat, for daring to tell her she looked nice,” I lied, smoothly. “I think her poor husband left her.”

  The laughter got louder. Sorceresses have always enjoyed more sexual freedom than any other women, save perhaps for the handful of self-made businesswomen. Young men talked in awed tones about what sorceresses were like in bed, stories that were about as true as the nonsense I was feeding them. I’d heard stories that ranged from the believable, perhaps even true, to the downright absurd and perverse. Oh, the story I told them would spread. It was too good not to share.

  Good thing she’s leaving tomorrow, I thought. And I have to make that clear.

  “It must have been her time of the month,” one of the listeners proclaimed. He’d been downing beer like water. I was mildly surprised he wasn’t already flat on his face. There was so much liquid staining his shirt that the nasty part of my mind wondered if he was only sipping a bit from each tankard. “No wonder she was in such a bad mood.”

  The group laughed, save for the disguised girl. I felt a flicker of sympathy.

  “Or she didn’t get laid,” another said. He belched, loudly. “Maybe she just needed a damn good fucking.”

  I hid my disgust behind an expressionless mask. He’d never dare say that in front of a real sorceress. My grandmother would have ripped him to shreds, in a manner that would have made the Red Murderer blanch. My female cousins would have done worse. Probably. I dreaded to think what a Witch of Laughter would have done ...

  “We’re leaving tomorrow,” I said, curtly. I pushed a little magic into my words, to make sure that part of the story was passed on. “I’m sure she’ll be better once we’re back on the road.”

  I allowed my smile to grow wider as I told a handful of other anecdotes, then stood and wobbled towards the door. Behind me, I heard a buzz of conversation. My audience was all fired up, ready to spread the story far and wide. I smirked, stepped onto the darkened streets and headed to the next tavern, twisting the glamour again before walking inside and repeating the performance. The story would definitely be over the city by midnight.

  And just to be sure, I’ll keep spreading a few different stories, I thought. I’d spent hours coming up with rumours, each just believable enough to spread. And make sure they are put in the right ears.

  I kept moving, changing my glamour time and time again. I hailed a guard and tried to complain about a travelling sorceress, only to be told to get out of his sight. The poor man would look the other way, rather than risk attracting a sorceress’s attention, but he’d report the incident to his superiors. I smiled as I walked away, remembering the absurd story about the previous night’s events. The guardsman might not even know they weren’t true. If he hadn’t been there ...

  It was pointless to wonder. I just kept going, dropping a rumour here and a rumour there, constantly changing my appearance so no one realised I was the person starting the same rumours. I spoke to merchants heading home from their shops, to prostitutes waiting for clients ... even to a pair of footpads, whom I convinced to spread rumours rather than anything more violent. The rumour seemed to rush past me. I was amused to discover, as I entered another tavern, that people were already expanding on the story. Juliana - apparently - was secretly in control of the entire convoy, using magic to keep everyone in line. I doubted my mystery opponent would believe it, but - when he heard - he’d certainly regard her as a possible victim. And one who had to be snatched tonight.

  If this doesn’t work, I’ll have to think of something else, I told myself. It should work, but I really would have preferred more time. I could have found someone willing and able to serve as bait ... I could have served as bait myself, with a little effort. I might have to move into a shop and become as unpopular as possible.

  I passed through the first tavern again - the story had mutated into Juliana raiding Mistress Layla’s house, then turning the guardsmen into women and dispatching them to an uncertain fate - and then made my way back to the marketplace. The wards were weaker, now that half the magicians in the convoy had left. There were only a handful left, including Juliana. They’d done what they could, but the wards were covering too wide an area to be completely effective. I doubted they’d stand up for long, not if the mystery kidnapper came calling. They weren’t even capable of setting off an alarm, let alone stunning him. I could have solved that problem, with a little effort, but I didn’t want to deter him. My lips quirked as I fiddled with the wards, setting up covert tripwires and alarms without making the wards look any stronger. The rumours had grown and grown in the telling, making Juliana sound like the reincarnation of Pendle or the enigmatic Dark Lady herself. I might have overdone it. I certainly didn’t want to scare the kidnapper off!

  Shaking my head, I finished work on the wards and slipped up to the caravan. Juliana hadn’t changed her personal wards, as far as I could tell. It didn’t matter. I sat on the ground, attuned myself to the wards and settled down to wait. Patience was a virtue, my grandfather had told me time and time again. It had never really been one of mine. Ours, really. My brothers might still be alive if we hadn’t been so impatient to become great before our time. I guess we’d inherited more from our father than just a name, a bloodline, and power.

  He has to come tonight, I told myself. I’d made sure, time and time again, to tell everyone Juliana was leaving tomorrow. There won’t be a second chance.

  The stone felt cold beneath me as I waited, each second ticking by slowly. It was hard to believe that only a few moments had passed since I’d begun my vigil. I was wrapped in shadow, concealed within the wards. There should be no way for an intruder to sense my presence. And yet ... the town beyond the wards was as cold and silent as the grave. I couldn’t hear anything, not even the hooting of owls or mice and rats searching for scraps in the darkness. If there was anyone else on the streets, they weren’t coming near the marketplace. I hoped that was a good sign. I didn’t want the kidnapper scared away by accident.

  She’s a great prize, I told myself. It was true, of both the real Juliana and the one I’d invented out of whole cloth. And no one would bother to look for her if she gets kidnapped.

  I waited. And I waited ...

  ... And then something brushed against the wards.

  Chapter Seven

  I was alert, instantly.

  The touch was practiced, very much so. It was just firm enough to feel out the wards without actually setting off any alarms. It would have worked perfectly if I hadn’t modified the wards myself. I stayed very still, content to watch as my unseen opponent worked his way through the wards. He was very experienced, I noted absently. His wardcracking skills were the equal of mine. I’d feared I might accidentally scare him off, either by making it too easy or too hard to break the wards, but he was good enough not to be deterred. I watched and waited, silently count
ing down the seconds. My opponent was a very skilled magician.

  Magic wafted through the wards, a soothing and sleeping spell that had no place in a straight fight. I had to smile in genuine admiration. Only one magician had managed to slip a sleep spell through their opponent’s defences and hammer it into place, at least as far as I knew. It didn’t take a strong magician to throw off the spell, merely one with enough awareness to realise what was happening and bite one’s lip before it was too late. But here ... the spell was practically part of the ward network. There were no warning signs, nothing to indicate that the wards were under attack. Everyone asleep would remain asleep until morning, whatever happened. They’d wake to find Juliana and Gabby gone.